The Null Device

Yahoo to merge with AOL? Apparently the deal (still being hammered out) would involve Yahoo acquiring AOL and Time Warner acquiring 20% of the combined company in return. If it goes through, it may be good enough to stop Microsoft from absorbing Yahoo, as they have been making increasingly menacing noises about. Which means that we may be able to access Flickr with non-IE browsers for a while longer.

¶ aol business microsoft yahoo 0

It's a good day for open standards; firstly, Yahoo (partly) embraces OpenID and Microsoft commit to opening their document formats, and now AOL are moving AIM and ICQ to the XMPP protocol. They now have an experimental XMPP server at xmpp.oscar.aol.com, with usernames being the user's AIM ID or ICQ number followed by @aol.com. They also seem to have a SIP server at sip.oscar.aol.com. Could this be the end of proprietary, locked-in IM networks and the start of an age in which IM is a commodity service, running on open standards, much like email?

(via /.) ¶ aim aol icq im open standards sip voip xmpp 0

Reasons to avoid using AOL Instant Messenger: according to their most recent terms of service, AOL have the right to do whatever they like with any text messages you send through their system, and you have no right to privacy and no say in things at all.

Although you or the owner of the Content retain ownership of all right, title and interest in Content that you post to any AIM Product, AOL owns all right, title and interest in any compilation, collective work or other derivative work created by AOL using or incorporating this Content. In addition, by posting Content on an AIM Product, you grant AOL, its parent, affiliates, subsidiaries, assigns, agents and licensees the irrevocable, perpetual, worldwide right to reproduce, display, perform, distribute, adapt and promote this Content in any medium. You waive any right to privacy. You waive any right to inspect or approve uses of the Content or to be compensated for any such uses.

So if AOL decide that they can monetise that steamy chat you had with hot_bi_babe_18f, or the story/screenplay/song ideas you've been bouncing around with your collaborator on the other side of the world, you're SOL.

Oddly enough, AOL's other service, ICQ, doesn't seem to have anything similarly nasty in its terms of service. (via Alec Muffett)

¶ aol privacy rights 0

Over a decade after The Year September Never Ended, AOL cuts off USENET access for its users. Don't hold your breath waiting for the blighted ecosystem to recover, though; pretty much everyone who values signal-to-noise ratios and not receiving megatons of spam has moved to mailing lists, blogs and web-based forums, leaving only marauding gangs of spammers and a hard core of freaky insane radioactive mutant porn pirates too far gone to be saved. Eleven years after September began, a "newsreader" has more to do with RSS feeds than NNTP, and in this cynical, spam-infested interweb, the USENET of the small, polite academic network of old is far too naïve to survive.

¶ aol history internet september usenet 0

Revolution is not an AOL keyword, a pretty good Gil Scott-Heron pastiche. (via bOING bOING)

Revolution is not an AOL Keyword.
Revolution will not be powered by Microsoft on
The Next-Generation Secure Computing Base
And will not star Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee
Or Larry Lessig and Martha Stewart.

I wonder how long until someone records a spoken-word version of this.

¶ aol gil scott-heron humour parody pastiche poetry revolution spoken-word 0

Almost a decade ago, they brought us the year September never ended; now AOL are adding blogging to their homepage services. Prepare to see an influx of dittohead blogs and britneyblogs. Within a year or two, the typical level of commentary may well look like "u r a doody-head!!1" (via The Fix)

Maybe WebTV should follow suit and set up a blogging service, with automatic syndication from CNN and FOXNews, and menus of pre-prepared "witty comments"?

¶ aol blogging 3

AOL Time Warner have come up with a new form of synergising their recording labels and online service: putting recording artists on their tech support line. If you call AOL's technical support number, you will hear prerecorded messages from Warner artists such as TLC and LeAnn Rimes, instructing you to "listen to the menu carefully prior to making your selection", and then urging you to buy the album "you've been enjoying during this call". (via Plastic)

¶ aol business commercialism marketing the recording industry time warner 0