Tag: AOL

In the mid-'90s, we remember being befuddled whenever we'd open the Sunday paper to find a CD emblazoned with the AOL logo. Were these people made of money? Were they really giving away compact discs?! As it turns out, yeah, pretty much. According to various former executives, AOL spent something in the neighborhood of $300 million to ship all of those discs. ...

Our parent company AOL has been working hard to reinvent itself after years of steadily fading from relevancy. We'll reserve judgment of how successful those attempts have been (since we'd be accused of being biased anyway), but we will say that the so-called 'Project Phoenix' revamp of AOL mail is a promising development. Currently in limited beta, Project Phoenix constitutes a complete overhaul ...

Share Here at Switched, we've been through countless hard drives over the years. That trusty ol' 400-gigabyte drive is going to fail sooner or later, swallowing your precious, carefully crafted music library as it goes -- unless you've prepared yourself. Fortunately, transferring your fully intact iTunes library to a new drive or computer is a cinch. You can, of course, grab the music files ...

Remember Winamp? It was the music management program back in the pre-iPod and iTunes days. You'd take music downloaded from Napster (remember that one too?) or ripped from your CD collection and dump it into a minimally organized library. But the llama has fallen out of favor and been replaced by the likes of iTunes and Windows Media Player. But, believe it or not, Winamp is still going strong. ...

Targeted advertising in a fact of life. Advertisers use cookies to track your browsing habits so that the ads you see are more attuned to your interests, and thus more likely to appeal to you. This might make some people (notably those who might enjoy the illusion of privacy) uncomfortable. Thankfully most of the major advertising networks allow you to opt out of their targeted advertising ...

As CBS reports, Ronald Reagan's son Michael has launched his very own @Reagan e-mail service in an attempt to provide a safe haven for "people who believe in true Reagan Conservative Values." Why, what ever do you mean, Michael Reagan? "What do I mean? Well, every time you use your e-mail from companies like Google, AOL, Yahoo!, Hotmail, Apple and others, you are helping the liberals," he ...

Highlights from this morning's other big tech headlines.... Twitter continues to overcome doubts about its ability to generate crucial revenue. Its @anywhere and sponsored tweets programs preceded a new plan to implement sponsored trends, and the system apparently just attracted a huge new customer. Disney/Pixar, in order to hype the upcoming 'Toy Story 3,' has emerged as the first ...

Highlights from this morning's other big tech headlines.... Apple's press conference tomorrow will reportedly focus on iPhone OS 4.0, but the company may also make another announcement concerning its recent acquisition of Quattro Wireless. According to various reports, Apple plans to reveal its development of a personalized mobile advertising system known as iAd. [From: Engadget] It's not ...

AOL, our parent company, has released a beta version of its once dominant AIM instant messaging program. While AIM has been toppled as the most popular IM service by both Yahoo! and Windows Live, it's aiming (get it?) to lure new users by integrating Facebook chat. Now, in addition to compiling updates from Facebook, Twitter, and other social services in your "Lifestream," AIM will allow you ...

Share What does your search engine say about you? Well, if you believe a new study from a group of marketing agencies, it says a lot. A group that included Wunderman, BrandAsset Consulting, Zaaz, and Compete set out to learn about the shopping habits and brand preferences of search users. Google users tend towards Target and Amazon, while Bing users (despite apparently being "early adopters") are ...

Got spam? Yeah, we do too. Oodles and oodles of it each day. Spammers are everywhere, and every now and again, the government nabs one (or two) and sends them to prison for their offenses. The latest feel-good story of that sort comes courtesy of 22-year-old Adam Vitale, who yeserday was sentenced to 30 months in prison for his part in a scheme to send messages to 1.2-million AOL subscribers. In ...

AOL lovechild/social media network Bebo is having its own little tryst with Universal Music Group, starting now. The two just announced that they are conspiring on a new and, according to press materials, "revolutionary" online drama called 'The Secret World of Sam King.' This is apparently the first-ever collab between a music company and a social media network, and it's intended to blur the ...

Yahoo's done its best to fend off Microsoft's aggressive advances until now, but it suddenly looks like the struggling company might be getting some help -- both the Wall Street Journal and Reuters are reporting that the Yahoo is "closing in" on a deal to merge with Time Warner's AOL division and partner up with Google on search advertising. Yeah, that's pretty major, and it would probably do ...

It was bound to happen eventually (if for no other reason than MySpace did it first) -- Facebook is finally offering up an instant-messaging service. Ironically, Facebook's new IM service may have the effect of killing off a couple of chat applications already available on the social-networking site. Initial rumors claimed that the new Facebook IM service, which is to be embedded into people's ...

In the spirit of full disclosure, AOL cuts our paychecks. But don't think that we're excited about this just because of contractual obligation. AOL has announced its Open AIM 2.0 initiative. While it is possible to chat with AIM via programs such as Pidgin and Trillian or web sites like Meebo, until now those operations were forced to hack their way into the AIM system. This limits advanced ...