this post was submitted on 07 Sep 2023
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AOL Pretends to be the Internet - The History of the Web (thehistoryoftheweb.com)
submitted 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) by videodrome@lemmy.capebreton.social to c/technology@lemmy.world
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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.capebreton.social/post/497698

In 1994, Ted Leonsis was the head of the new media marketing firm he created, Redgate Communications, spun out six years earlier from a CD-ROM based computer shopping business. Redgate dealed in digital media—sometimes called new media—new territory in the marketing world. And he was pretty good at it. That year, he went out to lunch with one his investment bankers, Dan Case. Case mentioned that his brother Steve was working at a small internet company looking to bring internet services to the mainstream. They had only just finished rebranding to a new name, with a new purpose, America Online.

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[–] wjrii@kbin.social 3 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Sure it was marketing speak, but Usenet's eternal September started in late 1993, and that's also about when AOL opened up their email to the internet. By late 94 there was a functional browser and they were effectively an ISP with extra stuff (that no one wanted anymore). In some ways, the "AOL is the Internet" angle was an admission that "the Internet" was what people wanted, and AOL itself was redundant. It probably did cause people to spend more on internet service than they needed, but it was already a rear-guard action, whether AOL knew it or not.