AOL Debuts New Features for Social Networking to Compete in Market

Was AOL Your First Internet Service Provider?

October 31, 2008

Hearing about AOL's new features — mainly social networking stuff like widgets and messaging options — make me nostalgic; I can hear that modem dialing and connecting and feel the exquisite pain of anticipation for those little three words (so ubiquitous it spawned a film).

AOL was my first Internet provider (or rather, my parents') — those free discs in the mail made it hard to resist a trial! Plus, all of my friends had AOL too. Of course, the now-exorbitant rates for dial-up service and time limits seem crazy to me, and most people have moved on to different providers (can you imagine having that speed again? I can't), but AOL will always be my first. Sigh. Was it yours?

65 Comments

booksrgood4u 4 years 28 weeks

Prodigy baby! I have never and will never do AOL.

twellve 4 years 28 weeks

my parents' first provider was eWorld, followed by AOL, but my first online provider was my university. back in '94, my uni had a great bank of modems to dial into, free webspace, unix shells... the works! i can safely say that had i not had access to so much for free (unless you count tuition!), i wouldn't have ended up working in IT.

colormesticky 4 years 28 weeks

We got interwebs through our local library. It was $5/month cheaper.

Advah 4 years 28 weeks

AOL too! Geek, I have exactly the same memories! I loved the sounds, the colours, the layout..

RoyalBlueMoss 4 years 28 weeks

yes, AOL was and still is my service provider.. I've had it for 10 or 11 years now.

jmichelle 4 years 28 weeks

AOL was my first... boy do I miss those days. I was 10 and my dad signed me up for Kids Only and then I "graduated" to AOL Teens and FINALLY had the "general" account. Ha! I loved everything about AOL back then, it pretty much MADE the internet for me. And I used to collect those trial discs- they made a leopard print one, once.

Zero_Cool 4 years 28 weeks

We first had AOL version 2.8!!! I also remember when they came out with version 4.0... I was so amazed. I think I was in the 4th grade when we got our first computer with internet... insane. I don't know what I'd do without internet now. My boyfriend I have sometimes have a no technology day... we aren't allowed to check our email, watch tv, or anything for 24 hours. It's quite an adventure... lol

Zero_Cool 4 years 28 weeks

espelina 4 years 28 weeks

Yes, I can still remember what the dail-up sounded like!

Frenched 4 years 28 weeks

Not really. AOL was our second Internet provider, though :) Our first one must have been AT&T. I remember getting all excited when I got the "You've got mail!" greeting. Ahh, good times...

kcwebgirl 4 years 28 weeks

oh boy. when the internet was billed in hours rather than speed. haha. i used to hate getting those ridiculous cds in the mail with updates every week

JKAggie05 4 years 29 weeks

Im pretty sure that my first ISP was Prodigy (woohooooo!!) , then AOL, then to our local internet service provider...

RobinFabulous 4 years 29 weeks

I still use AOL as my mail server.

LoveSarah 4 years 29 weeks

Ugh I hated AOL. What a terrible Internet server. And dial up! I am so glad we are beyond that!

Foofie 4 years 29 weeks

Oooh AOL .. With all those free interent CDS and then you get a bill in the mail for so much $$$ what a rip off

chatoyante 4 years 29 weeks

We had eWorld...remember, Apple's short-lived ISP? God, I loved that thing.

MissFonzie 4 years 29 weeks

I lived in the country and we had something called Midwest internet. It quickly got bought out by something I can't remember. That also quickly got bought out by Earthlink. Then the hell began.

retail counselor 4 years 29 weeks

We had Prodigy first. What a HOT MESS that was! ha

ilanac13 4 years 29 weeks

along with just about everyone else, yes i think that AOL was my first provider. i do have weird memories of using some college blog type thing when i was still in school - my brothers taught me to put in some college ISP addresses or something, and then i was able to chat with people outside of the whole AOL thing, but i think that for all real purposes, AOL was the first things for me.