If you’re reading this entry and still use AOL (many of you still are accessing my blog through AOL, sadly), count this as a warning shot which was fired — advising you to discontinue your service and migrate to better online services. AOL will be shutting down many services in an effort to mitigate “costs.”

It’s not a good year for AOL. After several hundred layoffs from Q1 to the dreaded Q4 reductions coming soon, you should prepare for major AOL service changes. Silicon Alley Insider (SAI) published an entry that listed services in line for becoming sunset (shutdown) by AOL. While the rumor-mill spins, SAI and Valleywag haven’t swung too far from the truth.

The number, fifty, is purely for sensationalism of the article. The actual number of services planning to be discontinued are likely much lower as confirmed by a few internal AOLers.  It seems some folks don’t understand that several of these services are already dead in favor of updated products.

Unlike Kevin Conroy, I’ll have the loins to be upfront and let you know what I think will drop from the service and remind you of what’s already dead. (In addition, I won’t send you an e-mail suggesting you to spam your family to use Company products which are always in the state of, “suck”.)

I’ll cut to the chase and let you know AOL will simplify down to an e-mail service provider and offer a line up of blogs with an obscene amount of advertising.

AOL Services To Live:

  • Winamp – I predict AOL’s one and only decent media player will make it through all the cutbacks. I reason that Winamp is considerably well-monetized and has zero operating costs to maintain other than a few remaining developers who will likely just keep the software patched from security vulnerabilities. I also suspect that CBS Radio will transform/kill AOL Radio in a matter of time; which is currently available within the Winamp software. Therefore, it’s fair to say that Winamp is monetized via in-stream audio and graphic ads.
  • AOL Message Boards – This product is a sore spot for me only because I’ve seen it’s peak potential and it’s downward spiral back down to devolve into the largest abandoned community on the Web. On the other hand, all the content voluntarily provided by their avid user base is likely to be their best asset to attract dazed and confused Web surfers who accidentally stumble onto a message board with content. From my recollection, this product affects the loudest users. (I say this because if people are comfortable causing a ruckus on the service, they’ll be fine complaining and forming those infamous Internet protests from it.)
  • AOL “Safe Search” — (This is a re-branded Google Safe Search product.) I suspect this service will continue indefinitely only because of the regulatory impact of removing age verification. In August, 2006, AOL went to a “free” business model, requiring no payment method or any means to confirm the age of new account holders — especially those created by minors. Having that said, AOL’s Consumer Advocacy and Privacy group would rather put a blanket on the matter and not remove this product in an effort to address upset parents when their child searches for adult content.
  • AOL 9.1 – Although Conroy would love to disagree, AOL users strongly dislike change. AOL 9.1 maintains the feel of the classic (ahem, legacy) AOL products. No one is going to want to install AOL Desktop, why? It’s totally unfamiliar. People stick with what’s familiar with them. Having all that said, AOL realizes the potential of the classic AOL software and exploit it with pop-ups and manipulative page refreshes in an effort to boost Page Views on ads … of which are questionable in the first place. Overall, the software is relatively simple to maintain as a codebase, as Member Services merely reinstalls the software for any problem which users pay a premium for.

AOL Services To Die:

  • UnCut Video – No revenue, poor traffic and isn’t promoted throughout the online service. I can tell you, it has a very small number of uploaded videos, considering they have millions of AOL users. It’s shameful. (In fact, I never saw it on the Welcome Screen.)
  • AOL Video – Along with the 10/07 Layoff, they were keen enough to include everyone in AOL Video and their affiliated teams. That is, their projects including HiQ, 10Ft, FuGu, and H.264 (HD) provided consumers with value to go along side their $2000+ HDTVs with Windows MCE in them. There is no value in Video on AOL as the transcoders seem to have a knack for locking up and the risk of hosting potential pornographic content is too high for business owners to sleep at night — especially with the loss of moderation support.
  • AIM Today – (Think of it as an AOL Welcome Screen for official AIM Client users.) The recycled content doesn’t justify it’s cost so it’s getting axed. Maybe the pop-up will disappear? No way, AOL couldn’t risk the loss of a seven-figure Monthly Page View count… it’ll be a 301-Redirect to the Welcome Screen just to piss off AIM users more.
  • AOL Pictures — No monetization in archiving photos indefinitely. Hardly any users ever print photos at Walgreen’s; hardly any usage to even keep the servers on. Why no usage? People expect their photos to be there so they have no need to constantly thrust themselves upon that property needlessly. Don’t worry, soon they will, to frantically back up all their memories which were sent across AOL over the past 12 years.
  • AIM Photos — Fail. The product may be “beta,” but that’s no reason to release a product to market with two features. I hedge my bets that the developers have been laid off or re-purposed to write the decommissioning scripts for the above services. (It was once theorized that AIM Photos could replace AOL Pictures, but as usual, no one could reach compromise so both products will be on the chopping block.)
  • AOL Hometown — The shutdown is set for 10/31/08. The primary cause for imminent death of Hometown is because of the product manager aborted before Q3 2007. Instead of turning the product around, the product manager jumped ship to work for a start-up. How’s that for “management?”
  • AOL Journals – The shutdown is set for 10/31/08. Not sure on the cause, except for the theory that this is the preemptive strike to kill community interactions from AOL users. The Journals team was motivated, my heart goes out to the Mt. View folks. (Good news for them, MySpace is right down the street for them.)
  • ICQ: Legacy and Affinity versions – Little revenue and less than expected market penetration are the ammunition in this firearm. Aside from the current GM build of ICQ, it will be shutdown because there is a current market battle between AIM and ICQ. Technologically, AIM screen names and ICQ numbers currently co-exist in the same namespace, so there is nothing holding them back from sending a SUDS update (and block old versions) in an effort to re-skin the client to AIM.
  • AIM: Legacy (Old) Versions – This will be a tough trigger for the business owner(s) to pull. A surprising number of AIM users refuse to obey the update to the AIM 6+ platform (Boxely) and naturally use old versions. Naturally, the newest version of AIM has more ads to monetize the experience. I am curious when they block old builds, if they’ll also block TOC-1 and TOC-2 connections — the same kind which are used by third-party AIM clients. It’s a decision the business owners are very conscious about.
  • AOL FDO Chat – Another tough trigger to pull for the business owners; but Ol’ Yeller needs to be put out of its misery. No one questions the performance of AOL FDO. It’s anticipated that AOL will be moving toward their Userplane platform. The only thing holding back this migration, is awaiting the user-engagement ratings currently being tested in AIM Chat.
  • Classic AIM Chat Rooms — For some reason, AOL never addressed user abuse which takes place in AIM Chats. Well, AIM chat rooms don’t contribute to revenue. Once AOL removes the SNAC, 0×00d, AIM Chat Rooms are toast.
  • X-Drive — AOL has a great record of acquiring companies and just running them right into the ground. X-Drive was once one of the first affordable (and best) file backup services on the Internet. Due to the lack of monetization, it’s in the cross hairs for the next layoff or so. (Christ people, slideshows don’t generate revenue…)
  • AOL OpenRide — Dead. The code base, Boxely, is now in use on AOL Desktop. Tip: A product is not ready for market when employees refer to it as OpenTurd, in order to describe the software’s performance and features. It’s pathetic; the online petition to keep it has an impressive 25 signatures.
  • AOL Boxely (AOL Dev Network) — I predict in a matter of months, the open source Boxely project will become only a distant memory. On the site, it says “Coming September 2008 … a New SDK.” It’s nearly November. Boxely was once AOL’s best foot forward into enabling developers to make applications — but no one did. Perhaps, it’s because every app spawned additional rogue processes and the architecture of “Services” lead to poor performance?
  • McAfee 7, 8, 9 (Provided by AOL) — Dead. AOL already discontinued renewing McAfee installations. Malware authors: Good news, 8MM+ AOL user’s McAfee icons just turned black. ;-)
  • AOL Safety & Security Center (SSC)– Dead, circa: early 2006.  Thankfully. This experimental software was a mistake right from the concept. It was a technical support nightmare. It must have been shameful to admit that all the McAfee processes could all be quietly disabled by sending a hard process kill to SSC.EXE, n00bs. (Not to mention, check out this flattering blog entry. Lulz.)
  • AOL WAP 1.x — Why support two wireless gateways?  Get an iPhone. Obviously, the average AOL blue-collar user has money to shell out for a modern phone which can render JavaScript and Third Screen Media advertisements. That said, AOL’s gonna whack the old wireless portal.
  • AOL Communicator — Dead. If you want to check it out, it was the first decent e-mail client AOL produced in days past. I have it archived and mirrored on my old account’s Web space. Download it now (before 10/31).
  • AIM Phoneline — Instead of doing the most sensible thing like making an AIM + Skype module and partner with Skype, AOL had to reinvent the VoIP wheel and it failed, badly. I’m actually quite glad I didn’t return my VoIP router; it makes a great paperweight. Hello?! Does anyone not realize that AIM users are MINORS …?! Anyone who thinks they will pay to make telephone calls is out of their mind. Ooh, a free call on Christmas, how kind of you, AOL…

All these predictions are based solely on the history of the Company, the lack of motivated personel, the current state of panicked leadership and the superior nature of competitors. In fact, I wish I had a much shorter list of products to be killed, but look at them. No future development is a strong sign it’s in “maintenance mode,” which is a corporate pejorative for “shutting down.”

I have two calls-to-action in this atrociously long entry:

** Warn your friends, family and co-workers that AOL may not be here in the next two years.

** Advise them to save and forward mail to an alternate e-mail address, download and install Firefox.