Page 49 - OSG Presents Classic Gamer Magazine #4

of thousands to a million. They offered ers post their messages on various
virtually the same websites and web pages scattered all
n what's being billed as things most Internet over the Internet, making it impossible
I the biggest corporate “While most Providers offer to- for a centralized place of public dis-
union of all time, the pending onlookers may view day: E-mail, online course. We’ve all seen postings on
merger of America Online chat, forums, mes- websites where one user copies/pastes
and Time-Warner proves this merger as just a sage boards, up to another surfer's comments from an-
that to be the leader in the the minute news, other website. Clearly, there is a need
Internet world, you must not marriage between the research databases, for a centralized service for information
only have the largest paying so-called "New encyclopedias, stock and public discourse.
subscription base in the trading, shopping, During this period, AOL was just a
world, but you must also of- Media" and "Old- and multiplayer wannabe specialist online service ca-
fer the best and most infor- games. tering at first to Atari computer users
mation. Media,” it also These classic (known as Control Video Corp. back
While most onlookers signifies a return to networks, however, then) and then later to Commodore 64
may view this merger as just offered one major owners (Quantum Computer Services).
a marriage between the so- the "Golden Age" of advantage that to- It wasn't until the early 90s that AOL
called "New Media" and day's networks don't: changed to their current name, discon-
"Old-Media,” it also signifies Information everything was tinued support of the Commodore and
a return to the "Golden Age" Services.” available on one ser- Apple II platforms, and became a major
of Information Services. Vir- vice's network. A player in the online services arena.
tually, we'll be going back to user never really AOL would offer two distinct features
a time when a leading online service had to "go to" or "telnet" to another during the course of the early to mid
provided more than just online chat, e- website or server to obtain the informa- 90s that would separate them from the
mail and an Internet portal; a time tion he or she needed. These services rest of the field. This would allow the
when they also provided a significant were rich with information and it was all service to slowly chip away at online
source for information without ever available on the service a user sub- service leaders like CompuServe and
having to journey outside a service's scribed to. Prodigy, thus taking over the online
servers. Today's Internet Providers are By having all their members on one services world.
clearly lacking in this one area: infor- network, instead of surfing from one What were these two distinct fea-
mation. site to another, these companies cre- tures? The first feature was AOL's ba-
How many times have you logged ated a cyber-community where people sic subscription plan. At $9.95 a
on to your favorite Internet Provider to frequently visited forums and posted month, AOL would allow its user a
look up information on a particular sub- messages (discussing everything from guaranteed 5 hours a month access.
ject only to find that the site doesn't computing to entertainment, news, While other services like CompuServe
offer anything on this subject? You television, and their everyday prob- would offer lower hourly rates, this op-
would then have to "go to" another site lems). Message boards tion clearly gave Internet users a
where you may only be able to find a were usually jammed chance at substantially lower Internet
little bit of the information you were with interesting com- service access costs without having to
seeking. Even after that, you would ments and thoughts, rack up a big bill. CompuServe would
have to hit another site looking for as opposed to the later counter with a basic service plan
more info. Maybe that next link, page, spam and junk posting that would allow users to use its basic
or site won't load, or worse, doesn't problems we encoun- services, like e-mail and news, for an
exist anymore. We’ve all been through ter with many of to- unlimited time while having to pay per
this frustrating process, but the merger day's Internet services hour for premium services like chat,
could significantly improve this situa- (junk e-mail and spam forums, and games. Internet users
tion. postings are synony- clearly wanted access to all of a ser-
Journey back to the 80s where we mous with AOL). To- vice's features without the hassle of
had an ASCII (American Standard day's message boards worrying about basic and premium ser-
Code for Information Interchange) and are sadly less engag- vices. If an AOL user ran out of their
early GUI (Graphics Users Interface) ing than they once basic hours, they would have to pay
front end based Internet world that was were. One only has to $2.95 for each additional hour.
ruled by someone other than AOL. venture into an AOL The second feature was AOL's clear
The big three at the time: H&R Block's forum to find that the support of the World Wide Web. The
CompuServe, General Electric's GEnie posting boards are web would be the biggest consumer hit
and IBM/Sears' Prodigy were all popu- usually dormant, with since the Nintendo Game Boy and the
lar information services with a large new postings few and Sony Walkman. The hype to get on
subscriber base ranging from the tens far between. Most us- the web was intense, and AOL would

Classic Gamer Magazine Summer 2000 49