Link: WSJ.com - AOL to Launch Net Phone Service, Giving VOIP a Mainstream Name.
I've been pretty down on AOL for a while after being a big supporter (and a stockholder) until the merger. Nothing that the company has done, not a single new innovation (not that there were any) has made me believe that the company had any hope for future growth. However, if done right, I think maybe VOIP might be something big for AOL. What does "done right" mean? It means that AOL has to AOL-ize the product. It needs a cute little yellow running man and a "You've got phonemail" message and all the same little hokey things that made the internet so accessable to people back in the late 90's. So many users tiptoed on to the web with AOL holding their hand, and eventually, they grew up to be internet savvy and left home. VOIP may prove to be the warm, homecooked meal that keeps the kids around for a little while longer.
The key will be converting the dial-up people to a broadband
connection+VOIP service, and somehow manage to squeeze AOL for
Broadband in between. VOIP is clearly a superior value to someone still holding on to a landline in their house, and that represents the bulk of the AOL userbase. AOL users, for the most part, are beyond late adopters, and I believe that the majority of them are not yet broadband enabled. They're internet dinosaurs, like my dad. My dad is still on dial-up. My parents don't even have call waiting. But AOL speaks dinosaur... they must, because they still have 22 million subscribers. AOL might have a pretty decent shot shopping cheaper phone service, and replacing the phone company with this relatively trusted brand they inexplicably hold on to.
So lets see what the pricing and features look like... all I'm saying is, this could be a ray of hope for a stagnant company.