Introducing the New, Social AOL

By Ben Haber

October 30th, 2008

One time long ago almost everyone heard the memorable line “you’ve got mail”. These days, not so much.

However, earlier today AOL launched some new features to the homepage in order to make the site more ‘social networking’ friendly, TechCrunch reported:

Users can log into social networks (Bebo, MySpace, Facebook and AIM) to view news feeds and update status. Bookmarks can be added to the top left of the page, and a feed reader is included at the bottom of the screen. AOL is also inserting direct inks to third party news sources via Relegence , a company they acquired in 2006 and began integrating into AOL Finance in late 2007.

This is a smart move by AOL, because there are so many social networks right now that it’s becoming hard to keep tabs on all of them. Even just remembering each password can be a daunting task at times. The ability to have one destination where you can have access to your email, Facebook, Twitter, etc. can really streamline everything and keep you in one place, sort of the way Robert Scoble lives, eats, and sleeps while using FriendFeed.

But just because it could make it easier doesn’t mean people will use it. Will you?

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