I think AOL will in the end still be a force to be reckoned with. It is finally seeing the biz model that made google an awesome company. Just for the record books I am not an employee of google, by the way.

Aol will fall, its just delaying it. Dialup is a dying breed. However I am suprised that they are giving this service away for free. I know plenty of people that were paying for the x-drive service. Its just odd that now it is free. What are they going to do next, give the dialup service away for free?

Many people will go back to AOL now that its free because the content is strong and the navigation is familiar. I think AOL will be hot again in 12 - 18 months time.

I had the X-Drive service for about 2 years. Just recently they lost all of my data from about Dec 2005 and before. That news would have been a little bit easier to swallow if I didn't have to pay for it. **Note: XDrive is a nice solution to make your data accessable from anywhere, HOWEVER do NOT use them as your only backup. Their website says they make backups of your backups and it is not true. I found this out the hard way after my data became corrupt and they could not recover it. Also, AOL just annouced recently that they are going to offer free service to broadband customers. I wonder how this will work?

The price the you pay for AOL service is way more than what you get. So why anybody has to go back to AOL?

AOL has a big problem, and that's image branding. Yeah they can offer whatever they want for free, but the fact is that younger people, such as myself, will always see AOL as "the service you use when you're handicapped at using the internet." In other words, AOL is the company my parents and grandparents might use. AOL has a huge image problem, and I cannot get over that to use any of their services, other than Instant Messenger. When is AOL going to wake up and re-invent themselves? For now, I will gladly wait for Google to release what they have in development. The fact that AOL may have penetrated the market first doesn't do any good for this consumer! BTW- I also sold my AOL holdings in the late 90s when I graduated from high school, and realised that AOL's business plan and product offerings were only going downhill. I don't regret it at all!

I tried xDrive and it was unusable. So slow and buggy I had to abandon it. Hopefully AOL has really improved the software. Otherwise it may well be be a serious turn off. Charlie

AOL will fade away as the general public continues to educate themselves in the IT area. Back in the day you could call AOL internet for dummies. It's getting closer and closer to the day where people want their cheap highspeed ISP and nothing running in the background and will want to customize their own online exoerience with whatever suits their needs.

This article is not accurate. I just went to Xdrive and they are offering 50% for AOL members, but it is NOT FREE.

Please correct me on this, but I swear I heard that AOL was saying to its customers that if they still had a dial-up connection, and were paying $26.95/month, that AOL would be giving them even huger amounts of storage. Um, HOW LARGE of them! If you are paying $26.95/month for dial-up, you need a good friend to sit down with you, smack you upside the head, and sign you up for broadband immediately. Beyond this, you may need storage. ;-)

>This article is not accurate. I just went to Xdrive and they are offering 50% for AOL members, but it is NOT FREE. From the article: "DULLES, VA -- August 3, 2006 -- AOL today announced that, starting in early September, it would make 5 GB of online storage available for free to all Web users." Broadband users will be able to download the AOL software in the future to take advantage of all the 'exclusive features' that only AOL subscribers can use (AOL email, etc). This change will of course not happen over night, many of their systems must be overhauled to allow public signups. -Mat

>This article is not accurate. I just went to Xdrive and they are offering 50% for AOL members, but it is NOT FREE. From the article: "DULLES, VA -- August 3, 2006 -- AOL today announced that, starting in early September, it would make 5 GB of online storage available for free to all Web users." Broadband users will be able to download the AOL software in the future to take advantage of all the 'exclusive features' that only AOL subscribers can use (AOL email, etc). This change will of course not happen over night, many of their systems must be overhauled to allow public signups.

Thanks, Matt. AOL actually announced (see the link in the post) that "starting in September" Xdrive would be free to anyone with an AOL or AIM account. Right now, you're correct, the service is still $10 per month. I imagine they're making Xdrive free in September to coincide with the "new" free AOL, but I"m not sure about that.

AOL content is not "strong", as one reader asserts. And, although the navigation is "familiar", it is not intuitive or powerful. Everyone trumps them on Smart Search. And, editorially speaking, its content groupings only appeal to people who don't know where to look for more substantive offerings (i.e. the very young or the very set in their ways). Although the move to an advertising-based revenue model should be applauded, AOL moves glacially in generating new products. It announces enticing advancements, sure, but by the time those advancements are made accessilbe to the public, another company has figured out a way to do it better.

I am surprised at Devon's comments. Since I know intimate details about what we did for her above and beyond our TOS. Your readers took their pot shots at AOL, but failed to read and understand what a great offering AOL has started yesterday and into the future the web portal and services that AOL will provide consumers will be the one that other measure themselves by, like Google, Yahoo, and MSN. Best Regards

We all read the article. But I, personally, will have to be convinced that AOL will deliver on its promises. AOL's enormous early success was due to a brilliant saturation marketing campaign (GOBOSH), not a triumph of user-friendly services (although its recent free VOD offerings of old episodic TV stands as an exception). I'll wholeheartedly admit that AOL's recent announcement SOUNDS great, but, no disrespect to the Xdrive Staff, there's a reason why AOL has a very negative public perception, and it's not the fault of the public. If it begins to churn out great product after great product (well- conceived, smartly integrated, QC'd and bug-free), then they can be a relevant force again, and I think it is possible. I just wouldn't call it a slam dunk.

Streamload.com has been giving away much more storage (with fantastic service) for a while now. This seems "too little, too late