AOL: the original web platform
From chat rooms to unmistakable chimes, here’s a quick look at one of our two March Madness finalists.
If you’re like us, you still get a little shiver up your spine when you hear the iconic beee-boo-boop-boop-boop-be-dee-do-dee-do sound indicating you were logging on to AOL. The drawn-out dial-up pattern only heightened the anticipation as you unlocked a bold new world, full of instant information, immediate connection to friends, and access to everything you weren’t supposed to access.
For many of us, this sound is inextricably linked to AOL. Originally dubbed America Online, the web platform was a pioneer of the early internet. It began as a video game company in 1983 and was near bankruptcy in 1985 when it was taken over by Jim Kimsey and reconfigured as an online service. Their success is attributed in part to the unforgettable CD campaign, in which they sent millions of free trial CDs to people’s mailboxes. (Fun fact: at one point 50 percent of the CDs produced in the US had the AOL logo on them.)
Remember the feeling of getting an AOL CD in the mail advertising 100 free hours? It felt like you won the lottery.
Due to expansion, partnerships, mergers and leaderships changes, the company grew through the 90s, dominating the internet space, and in its late 90s/early 2000s heyday, AOL purchased Netscape, adding to their browser capabilities, and then bought Time Warner in the largest merger in US history.
But in a classic tale of old dogs/new tricks, as the rest of the web moved forward — and broadband hit the mainstream — AOL stayed true to itself and lagged in their technology. They were spun off of Time Warner in 2009, were acquired by Verizon in 2014, and were sold to a private equity firm in 2021 for $5 billion dollars. Now — they still exist! — AOL is a media company with news and content as well as email, games and other functions.
As for those iconic chimes, while our brains associate them with AOL, they’re just the sounds of a modem connecting. Why? Well, that’s a Wikipedia search for another day.
