The year was 1999; Kara Swisher was a Washington post reporter. In this year, Kara was granted a first time opportunity of accessing one of the most monitored and the hottest companies in the world, AOL, or American Online Inc. Kara Swisher later went on to write a book, aol.com, that captured the secrets of the strategies that Led to AOL becoming the largest online company in the world. In this book, Kara goes ahead to reveal all the background dealings between AOL and Microsoft’s Paul Allan and Bill Gates, prodigy, CompuServe, the Christian right and even Netscape.
The AOL story
In the story, Kara tells the great history of online business that originates from AOL’s founder and entrepreneur, Bill Von Meister. The idea fell to a marketer, Steve Case who toyed around the idea and he built AOL under the pressure of competitors who were wealthier at that time. As Kara writes, the reason AOL succeeded was due to the vision Case had for the company to establish AOL as a virtual community as opposed to the common business tool or shopping centre online then.
Reviews On Aol.Com
The AOL’s story, told from the company’s origin, it’s much talked about start up all through to how it became an online giant company is a heroic and irresistible comedy. Kara Swisher’s writes the unprecedented growth of AOL as an online giant, a company blamed for everything that went wrong.
Publishers Weekly @ www.publishersweekly.com
AOL became all it is today because of the perfect marketing strategies of the company. The company defeated some of its best competitors like CompuServe and prodigy to become the most used internet access way by Americans. Kara Swisher, the author of aol.com, also covered the American online and the internet since the year 1994 for the Washington post. Kara conducted interviews with the executives to expose details of how Paul G. Allan tried to buy off AOL in 1993. In the same year Bill Gates foretold of AOL’s downfall that was never to be. In the book, Kara admits that “Case, by extension AOL, is so vanilla, so bland, so middle of the road”.
Booklist @ www.booklistonline.com
The author of the book, Kara Swisher, had the benefit of interviewing the executives of AOL. From this experience, the author tells an intriguing story of what makes AOL the best. The hero of the story is not AOL’s founder but Steve Case, who fought a hard war to make AOL what it is today. The story of the continuing online business competition between AOL and Bill Gates is particularly interesting.
About American Online Inc
Ever since it became operational, AOL or American Online Inc has been under criticism from the media as well as the high-tech world. There was even a time when Bill Gates threatened to buy AOL or burry it. Despite the criticism, AOL refused to die and became the largest online company in the world. Today, AOL has more than 11milion subscribers and is regarded as the undisputed leader of the online world.
Conclusion
The book, aol.com, goes to recreate the great history of AOL in a fascinating way. The book is an important detailed story that allows you into the inner circles of AOL. It is a story about the birth of a new phenomenon, how the company is changing culture and a story about the innovators who lead AOL.