Anti-AOL

Readers tipped me off today that something is wrong with AOL's Message Boards: in fact, most of them are missing. The UK Message Boards were shut down with no warning whatsoever.* (See the end of this post for my UK boards disclaimer) Many UK chat rooms were also shut down. No one knows where the US Message Boards have gone. When you click on the "Is this the last board left?" topic which is found one-off from AOL's Message Board home page you're taken to...I kid you not...Yahoo!, where a board exists for AOL members to wonder aloud where AOL's message boards went. It's a bizarre situation.

Some message boards remain - but they're hard to find - and now many look like blogs - when they don't look like pea soup!

On March 31st all of the AOL message boards disappeared. According to Bumped Tek, "On April 1st, the old format boards re-appeared for a few moments then quickly vanished." Even when some of the boards returned later today, they were no longer reachable from search engines (when you click the results link for the Travel Board, for example, you're brought to the main Message Board page). The only way you can access AOL's remaining Message Boards is by visiting them directly from the Message Board home page since the links used up until March 31st (which are still shown in search engine results) no longer work.

Incredibly, most of the newly formatted Message Boards are unusable because the body copy on the Topic Lists is jamming together in clumps.

Welcome! You've got angry customers!

Once you find top level posts on the remaining boards, you'll see that many of them now look like top-level blog posts followed by comment sections. The posts look like articles on AOL News - the format is the same. If you scroll to the bottom of the "boards" a comment form is there. You're not exchanging messages anymore; you're just leaving comments. The AOL Message Boards are now the AOL Message Blogs! The changes have so disturbed AOL users that they've turned the AOL Auto Board into a rant zone.

According to Bumped Tek, "It seems AOL will be moving some message boards over to their blog network..."

Between being unable to find their favorite message boards and unable to recognize them once they're found, I think AOL has done themselves in in the eyes of their users, who seem confused, frustrated and angered by the changes. To be fair (if not too balanced!) AOL gave some warning - a single blog post on People Connection three weeks ago. Still, it seems nothing could prepare AOL Message Board users for this.

Three boards (just a small sample - there are many more) that are no longer accessible from their old web addresses or from search engine results:

• AIM Developers Board
• AOL Travel Board
• AOL Black Voices/Fitness Board

Comments from AOL users:

AOL is a FUSTERCLUCK !!!

So their idea of "changes" is annhilation??

I am clicking my heels three times and reciting 'There is no place like home'. I am so lost.

I didn't get to tell anyone good bye...

...this is the ONLY reason i have kept AOL and if they are going to just force us to use yahoo then why even keep it any longer?

This is a prime example of what happens to American business when it's outsourced overseas. It goes down the tubes!

I'm on Yahoo from an AOL link? Say what???

Me too mona! I signed into my AOL and for some reason got re-directed here...ugh! ugh! ugh! what's even more weird I logged onto my vegasmermaid sn and it came up dragonflie63 which is my account on yahoo! I don't get it!!!

It certainly seems that AOL doesn't give a rat's backside about people looking for intelligent conversation about politics and serious news.

post a link if you find some [AOL] board still open.

Today a quote on this blog about the closing down of the AOL UK Message Boards and chat rooms: "I think AOL have made the decision that they don't really want customers."

Angry about the loss of the message boards? Have any tips on when things will smooth out for AOL users on remaining boards? Want to start an official page on boards that are still open? Want to petition AOL to change the remaining boards back to their old style? Reply below.

* My UK Boards disclaimer: Initial comments left on my blog from people in the UK show some users reacted as though they had no warning whatsoever of the UK Message Board shutdowns, but later comments (below) and even a tip I received - but did not read in time - indicate AOL UK users were given some sort of warning two weeks to a month in advance - every fact is still in dispute as of this writing, though. 4-5-09: So far all I can find on the web is a cache of a board that says UK users were notified by pop-up when they clicked on a "Community Board" link.

4-5-09: Did AOL know five months ago that they were closing the UK boards this year - but forgot to tell CarPhone Warehouse call reps who work for AOL not to leak the information? The message board linked to shows what appears to be a cover-up that went fairly well. AOL simply blamed the Carphone Warehouse call rep who emailed this AOL customer for not understanding how AOL works. Interesting stuff!

By the way, to my new visitors and long-time readers...thanks for mentioning this blog (oh, and good job hijacking the Basketball board)!

Postscript, 4-15-09: AOL restored most of the missing US message boards yesterday, saying "you spoke, and we listened". Well, it's about time, isn't it? A complete list of resurrected boards is here. Folks, it always pays to complain when you don't think you're getting what you deserve - how this story ended is perfect proof of that. Keep on fighting!

Watch out, AOL users. If you see this in your inbox - like I did tonight - then you've got Phish. Symptoms of Phish are as follows:

1. You have an irrepressible urge to click on real-looking links to AOL
2. You think this phisher's email is so convincing
3. You can't understand why the fine folks at AOL, a multi-billion dollar company, misspell words, mangle grammar and forget to punctuate

That last item is your cue to RUN as far away from your email as possible until the urge to click on links passes.

I hate AOL but that won't stop me from giving you a a few tips to help you stay sane:

1. AOL will never email you to ask you to update your billing information.
2. No one at AOL will ever ask for your password.
3. Emails from legitimate companies with misspellings, grammar and punctuation errors are NEVER legitimate emails.
4. If you're not convinced, make sure your browser's status bar is enabled and hover over the links within the email, then look at your status bar. You will see that the links point to other websites, NOT to aol.com.
5. WARNING: Sometimes phishers use fancy Javascript in their email to make it look as though links point to AOL - but it's a trick. If any of the above facts apply to the email you are reading, do not click on the links.

I have my suspicions that the phisher's email was sent to me because I run Anti-AOL. I get all kinds of pranks via my inbox because of this blog. I just roll with it. In fact, I'm turning my victimization into a public service announcement tonight to help millions of other people, which is pretty darn nice of me.

Related Material: How to Protect Yourself From Phishers and Other Attackers

After I got done today responding to Joe Manna on this issue, I started answering my email for the first time in weeks, and one of my reader's questions about AOL's email storage policies brought me to Wikipedia's page on AOL. That wouldn't normally reveal the answer to something going on at AOL that it seems nobody has the answer for, but lo and behold the page was updated recently (run-on paragraphs abound; the italicized swath was italicized by me):

Members who joined AOL Australia from 1999 (when they first set up operations in Aus) up to 1st November 2008, were badly affected by recent AOL Australian Management changes. In Feb 2004 most AOL dial-up customers were 'forcibly' migrated to iPrimus telecom when Primus bought out AOL. iPrimus then put users on to their own dial-up or ADSL service, and switched old AOL accounts to the global 'free AOL email' service to allow uninterrupted AOL email access. 'Members' continued to access their original AOL accounts until around 1st December 2008 by using the US based AOL Webmail or alternative IMAP based email local client service such as Outlook. Access to member's free AOL email box was possible through any ISP. AOL Australia then attempted to raise much needed cash, so decided (remarkably) to force free users back to using their old, paid for, dial up service, even though by then most people already had internet access through iPrimus or other ISP. If AOL had an active valid credit card on record, members were to be billed again completely by surprise. If AOL Australia couldn't get the cash from a valid card, members had their 'free AOL email' account suspended, leaving existing users in a state of complete confusion and disarray. Members wanting to keep their email addresses had to pay AOL AU$6 a month within 90 days. AOL did not send out notification emails to AOL 'free email' users, but only to iPrimus email addresses and AOL dial-up software users. Members 'free AOL email' boxes with files and address books were cancelled until they paid up. Thousands of AOL customers were considerably upset by this course of action, which caused the reputation of AOL Australia to become even worse than it was already.

If the above quote is true [citation needed?], that solves the mystery of what happened to Australian users free AOL accounts.

Haven't had time to delve too deeply into this but throughout December I continued to receive tips that AOL is canceling any free AOL account created "overseas". Here's the most recent tip (end of December-ish):

My (free webmail) AOL account has been cancelled. I don't know why, there was no warning or explanation. I have lodged queries with Yedda.com and see that several other people (who all appear to be in Australia) have the same problem. No response has been received at Yedda.com.

Their message (below) is not very helpful. The phrases "at this time" and "Try Again" seem to imply hope that the account will be restored at some "time".

AOL have not given any information about what's going on here nor have they let us know HOW to restore our accounts. Even if I could login to get my address book details I would be happy.

Their HELP and Troubleshooting areas do not address this problem at all, you just end up going around in never-ending circles. We even managed to get to speak to a person at AOL (after using one of the phone numbers shown on your site) - but they didn't seem to be aware of the issue!

Message follows:-

Account Cancelled (Non-US)

We are sorry. You will not be able to access this service at this time. Your screen name is associated with a cancelled account and a mailbox can not be created for you at this time.

Try Again

Help and Troubleshooting | Help Pages | AOL.com

The Technical Stuff:

Error Code: C0FE022B

Report ID: 30223-webmail-20081216-090600

I was disinclined to believe Frank's tip after I read it, but by checking my email and anonymous tipline, following the matter on sites like veryrecent.com, and checking forums on other websites I've gathered enough anecdotal evidence to believe free overseas email accounts were canceled left and right without warning or notice throughout December (but the majority of canceled accounts seem, for some reason, to be concentrated in Australia). I'm not sure what's going on, or why AOL made no announcement to the media or on their own websites. Anyone want to fill us in? Especially anyone at AOL (AOLers, you can always comment anonymously)? Please bring us up to speed here.

Asking why AOL screws up nearly everything they touch is like asking why the sun shines on a clear day, but I'm a sucker for tradition, and for two years running I've done so, so why not a third? It's reasonable to expect this is the last Top 5 I'll ever do on AOL since the company is dying. With no further ado, AOL's top five blunders of 2008:

AOL purchases Bebo. Why?

In AOL's biggest "WTF?" moment of 2008, they blew a cool $850 million on Bebo, a mostly UK-based social network that only 5 million Americans visit regularly, then admitted they wasted their money on it. To put the gargantuan-ness of this mistake into perspective, imagine one billion dollars. Now imagine Facebook. Now imagine that not even Facebook, the biggest, most successful social network on Earth besides MySpace, is not worth anything near one billion dollars. It probably isn't. Subtract a measly $150 million dollars from that billion we were just kicking around, and that's what AOL paid for an overseas flea circus that word of mouth says makes the population of MySpace look upright, prudish, and filthy rich in comparison.

Further imagine that even the most successful social network cannot survive without money. That's not a fantasy - that's the truth. So far both MySpace and Facebook have proven hard to monetize. People tune out or block out the ads that support those sites, so the profit margins are at best slim. Now imagine that Bebo doesn't have anywhere near MySpace's audience or reach. Do the math on the ad reach - ain't too pretty, is it?

In the end, it looks like AOL paid $850 million to do an integration of the Bebo and AOL home pages that a small team could have whipped up in a week flat for say, $6,000. It's like NetVibes all over again - did Netvibes cost anyone $850 million? $850 million bought AOL little more than the right to brag on Bebo's home page:

"The top part of the homepage [now] allows you to receive email updates from AOL, Yahoo Mail, [and] Gmail directly to your Bebo homepage. Underneath that section, you will see a "changes" area that let's you see what is going on with your AIM, Twitter, Flickr, Del.icio.us, YouTube and, of course, your Bebo friends. On the right hand side, you will see a media recommendations area which includes all of your subscriptions and stuff we think you'll enjoy."

Wow. $850 million for a web page integrated with some of AOL's services that will gain traction with not one more person in the US than it has so far. Being a fiscally austere person, this sort of extravagance gives me fits. Do you know what AOL could do with $850 million dollars?

1. AOL could give a $212.25 refund to every person in the US who has ever used AOL, assuming 40 million total signups and maybe 20 million users who got screwed by over-billing practices at some point.
2. They could pay Google back every penny they lost taking a dumb risk on AOL as an ad and search partner - not that Google deserves to be compensated for their hard-to-explain short-sightedness.
3. They could simply hang onto it to add to their lousy bottom line. I could get more creative but I'm too tired to bother.

AOL raises dial-up rates again.

While it's not as flashy as news of AOL buying Bebo, AOL raising dial-up rates from $9.99 with tech support to $9.99 without tech support or $11.99 with tech support is the stupidest thing they did all year. No one wants dial-up anymore, so no one will use it if they can help it. Dial-up has fallen so far out of favor with the masses that they willingly pay top dollar for DSL, broadband, and even high-speed dial-up, with it's promise of near-perfect image and data compression at top speeds and a price-tag of about $17 a month. Today's websites, based heavily on Flash, AJAX, and image-rich style sheets, just don't load well at dial-up speeds.

Even AOL's dial-up users realize this, with memberships dropping from 9 million to 6.9 million year-over-year. AOL's answer to declining subscription revenue was not to keep the rate low to attract as many users as possible, but to raise it to maximize profit on the few people left who either like or must use AOL dial-up for whatever reason.

The only saving grace for AOL users is that from word-on-the-street talk, I gather most people who use AOL dial-up still pay about $23.90 a month for it. Like my sister-in-law, who hasn't used her AOL connection in years - so anyone who either signs up now or asks for the new, "lower" $11.99 rate will actually save money compared to how much AOL dial-up used to cost. What a thought!

AOL blew the Google deal.

This had to be the easiest deal Google ever made with any company: "Let us help improve your search scores and run ads against your sites in our results. In return for that, we're buying 5% of your company". How could anyone screw up a deal that sweet? Leave it to AOL to find a way. Google is taking a huge loss on the deal, writing it off to the tune of perhaps $500-750 million, nearly as much as the Bebo purchase cost AOL. Talk about fiscal irresponsibility...

AOL didn't buy Yahoo!. Yahoo! didn't buy AOL.

As I've said many times over the years, I think an AOL-Yahoo! mash-up would be match made in heaven given audiences of similar ages, income levels and interests (shopping, chat, email, social communities, etc). I can't see why this deal shouldn't be done. But leave it to the perennially indecisive Jerry Yang, Yahoo's former CEO, to sit on his hands instead of doing more than "talking to" AOL, and leave it to Yang's spiritual twin, Jeffery Bewkes, to engage in the same hand-sitting while encouraging the same fruitless "talks". What a waste of both companies combined potential - which I think would be a marvel previously unseen in this world.

AOL leaves Journals and Hometown users hanging.

The way AOL handled the closing of AOL Journals and Hometowns was a perfect disgrace - and a typical example of how AOL alienates even their most loyal customers, hurting their bottom line in the long run more than their stupidest purchases ever could. Users of these sites were given scant notice of AOL Journals and Hometowns closing down - about 30 days - and no way whatsoever to automatically download or transfer files to another site.

Feeling for them, I searched the Internet for a program that could handle the download process without users having to cut and paste perhaps thousands of posts into Word or other cumbersome Office and note-taking programs.

Joe Manna soon pitched in with more tips to help AOL users get their files, and finally, one week after AOL gave notice, they finally teamed with Google to get user's files moved to Blogger. Unsatisfied with Blogger as a new platform, many users chose to simply download and save their files instead.

After Hometown closed, People Connection, Joe's blog and my blog continued to get hit with desperate pleas from AOL users who missed the deadline. In a last-minute save, Joe O. of taimantis.com, a former Hometown user, did some research and found AOL left the Hometown files up on their FTP servers after the deadline. He contacted me and Joe Manna to tell us how to download the files, and Joe Manna and I did what we could to get the word out to AOL users. Of all of AOL's blunders, this was the most inconsiderate one of all.

Related posts: AOL's Top 5 Blunders of 2007 and AOL's Top 5 Blunders of 2006.

Republished 12-30-08. Last updated 3-11-09.

Note: This tutorial will also help you remove AOL OpenRide, AOL Desktop Search and AOL Explorer 1.5. Unfortunately, I can't fit that many versions of AOL into the title of this post, or into the sidebar.

AOL 9.0 VR was the first version of the AOL desktop client to include a new version of the AOL Uninstaller, the tool that AOL includes to find and remove all versions of AOL for you. AOL has released four new versions of the desktop client since the day I wrote this post: AOL 9.1, AOL 10.0 Desktop, AOL 10.1 Desktop, and AOL 9.5 (formerly AOL Classic). I cover how to use both the 9.0 VR Uninstaller and later versions of it here.

You can use this tutorial alone or in conjunction with the jv16 PowerTools or CCleaner tutorials.

All visitors running Windows '98/2000/ME/XP: Before we get started, visit this page to learn how to back up your registry, files, and folders. See this tutorial to uninstall the AOL WAN Miniport after  you've removed AOL.

Mac users, please read this advice for removing AOL at Mac Rumors.

Issues for all AOL users running XP, Vista or Windows 7: I've had email that some PCs are infected by viruses when removing AOL, so run a scan with the free online Trend Micro tool before you get started. Some versions of 9.0 SE will not uninstall because a process won't shut down and all versions of AOL may become corrupted and unremovable by normal means; if that's the case use my instructions to stop the AOL Connectivity Service from running before you remove AOL. See this (for XP) or this (for Vista and Windows 7) if you can't find or run the AOL Uninstaller.

As you go along remember you can click on each screen shot to expand it to full size.

1. First, let's find the AOL Uninstaller...

For Win XP users: Click your Start button and click Control Panel. In Control Panel click Add & Remove Programs, then locate the AOL Uninstaller on the Add & Remove List and click Change/Remove.

For Vista and Windows 7 users: Click your Start button and click Control Panel. In Control Panel click Programs and Features, then locate the AOL Uninstaller on the Installed Programs List and click Uninstall.

2. Choose which AOL programs to uninstall.

By default, the older version of the AOL Uninstaller (seen only in AOL 9.0 VR) won't display a full list of AOL products installed on your computer. It will only show that the AOL Connectivity Service is installed. Newer versions of the AOL software such as AOL 9.1, AOL Desktop and AOL 9.5 will automatically list all versions of AOL that are installed.

If you're using AOL 9.0 VR (you'll know if you are because your screen will look mine does in the picture above) place a checkmark next to the AOL Connectivity Service and go to the next step.

If you're using AOL 9.1, AOL Desktop, or AOL 9.5, place checkmarks next to all of the AOL programs that you wish to remove and go to Step 4 or Step 5.

3. AOL 9.0 VR users only: How to find every version of AOL...

Click on the words Search for Older Versions of AOL. Those words will be underlined in blue.

Wait while the Uninstaller searches for older versions of AOL.

You'll see a dialog box that says, "Searching for older versions of AOL. This may take a moment." It'll take a few minutes, so pour yourself a cup of coffee and chill; when it's done searching for older versions of AOL, place checkmarks next to the versions you would like to uninstall and go to the next step.

4. For hurried and/or expert users: Remove some or all of your shared AOL data now. Not in a hurry or don't know what you're doing? Go to Step 5.

Warning: this is not an option to choose which data to save. It's an option to choose which data to remove.

If you don't need to preserve sensitive data (such as passwords and email files) on a case-by-case basis, you can safely choose this step. Otherwise, hit the Cancel button and go to Step 5 now.

Click the Manage Data link on the right-hand side of the Uninstaller screen after you choose which AOL programs to remove.

You'll see a dialog box that says: Manage Your Personal Data. This box gives you the option to "clear" (delete) your passwords or to "clear" all of your data. Click the button that best matches your needs. You'll see the message: "All of your local data (or "All of your passwords") have been cleared." Click OK to close the message.

5. For casual or worried users: Remove shared AOL data on a case-by-case basis now.

If you prefer to remove saved data on a case-by-case basis, this is the step for you. Once you've placed a checkmark next to an AOL program you wish to remove, a dropdown box will open and you'll see the message: "Shared Data: This application shares storage for settings and personal data...Click to remove this shared data now." Click on the word Click in that message. It will be underlined in blue. Your shared data for that AOL program will be removed. Repeat this step for every AOL program on your computer. If you don't wish to take this step on a particular AOL program, hit the Cancel button and proceed to the AOL program that you wish to remove some or all data from.

6. Select which files you'd like to keep.

Look at the bottom, right-hand corner of your Uninstaller Screen. It will say, "Select which files you would like to keep." The choices are Downloaded Files and Cabinet Files (click the links to learn what the files contain). AOL assumes you want to keep those files, so the boxes for them will be checked by default. If you don't want to keep those files, uncheck the boxes to discard them, then click Uninstall.

7. Confirm the uninstallation(s).

You'll see a dialog box that says, "Are you sure you want to uninstall these AOL products?" Read the list of installed products to make sure, then click the box marked "Yes."

8. Restart your computer to finish removing AOL.

You'll see the message: "Your computer must be restarted to complete the AOL uninstallation." Click the Restart button in the dialog box. Your computer will automatically be restarted.

(Back to Top)

Back to the jv16 PowerTools tutorial or the CCleaner tutorial...

Further Reading: Check the FAQs if you have a question; if your question is not answered in the FAQs, please feel free to send me an email. See my How-to Section for more ways to get AOL out of your life.

This is interesting: Joe Manna happened to catch a comment on the PeopleConnection blog from the Ficlets creator, Kevin Lawver, a long-time AOLer who left the company in May. Kevin wrote about Ficlets:

I knew this was coming, I just didn’t know the day. I tried, with the help of some great people, to get AOL to donate ficlets to a non-profit, with no luck. I asked them just to give it to me outright since I invented it and built it with the help of some spectacular developers and designers. All of this has gone nowhere.

I’ve already written an exporter and have all the stories (the ones not marked “mature” anyway). I have pretty much all of the author bios too. Since I was smart enough to insist that AOL license all the content under Creative Commons, I’ll be launching a “ficlets graveyard” on 1/16 so at least the stories that people worked so hard one will live on.

I have mixed feelings about ficlets’ demise. On the one hand, I’m proud of the work we did on it. I’m thankful that AOL allowed me to build it with a truly amazing group of talented folks. I’m humbled by the community that ficlets attracted and the awards that ficlets won.

On the other hand, I’m sad that I wasn’t allowed to keep working on ficlets. I’m disappointed that AOL’s turned its back on the community, although I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.

So, to all the ficleteers out there - your stories will live on, and there may be a couple more surprises in the works before 1/15 if I have my way. Be on the lookout… I’ll post any news to my blog: http://lawver.net.

Posted at 9:41PM on Dec 3rd 2008 by Kevin Lawver [source]

Let's recap.

1. AOL chose to shut down Ficlets rather than donate the site and server(s) to a non-profit who would certainly manage the costs from there on in - and probably manage Ficlets - and the community that developed from it - better than AOL did.
2. Next, AOL refused to give Ficlets to the very person who created it.
3. Luckily, a contract stipulation that Kevin insisted on before handing Ficlets over to AOL puts the content under a Creative Commons license so it can be reprinted by Ficlet users or Kevin himself. He's going to work on that starting on Jan. 16th. Unluckily, any such undertaking is guaranteed to be a massive and expensive pain in the ass for Kevin, who wouldn't have to go through such a rough transition if AOL had simply agreed to items 1 or 2.
4. Finally, Joe speculates that Ron Grant, the COO at AOL, was playing favorites all along, so with Kevin Conroy, the former Executive Vice President of Products and Marketing at the time Ficlets was acquired out, and Bill Wilson in, Ficlet's demise was inevitable - and predictably quick.

As to Joe's speculation...is it just me, or will AOLers fight with each other about anything and try to outdo each other every chance they get?

It reminds me of how AOL killed the Netscape browser in late 2007 (which no doubt came about after yet another fight) when they refused to sell the code to anyone else. Even though Netscape was built on open-source code, AOL owned the name "Netscape" so they didn't legally "have to" allow anyone else to continue developing it. I liked the Netscape browser (who wouldn't - it's last iterations were just like Firefox) so that decision, like most of AOL's decisions, rubbed me the wrong way.

The Ficlets story, like the Netscape story, speaks volumes, showing us again how cruel, stubborn and out-of-touch AOL still is - even in the midst of their last, waning days.

Just got a comment from "Frank" saying:

I just found out - not sure if this is true - that AOL has sold off (is selling off) all its international operations. This has already happened to the Uk and Australia. If you use webmail or have set up a free webmail post box (as suggested on every AOL home page) - and are not an AOL paying subscriber, you will suddenly be 'cut off' leaving you with a sign in screen message saying that you're not in the US and your account has been cancelled. This applies to everyone who has a .com email address originally outside the US (about 50M people). They will now be moved to .co.uk (for the UK) and .com.au (for Australia).

Without more information from "Frank" I'll have to assume he got his information from a talkative type at one of the AOL call centers - but is what he was told true? If not, why was he told that?

AIM Phoneline Hung Up For Good

Unrelated to the above, but I don't have time to rustle up a new post on it - via Terence Chang - AIM Phoneline will be discontinued as of Jan. 13th, 2009. His post lists plenty of good alternatives. One of my readers tipped me off to problems with canceling AIM Phoneline here.

4-2-09: Many more AOL message boards closed on March 31st and April 1st - read about it here.

This is what I get for not checking my backlinks more often: a post that is one month and six days old.

Unbeknownst to me, this blog was mentioned on an AOL message board on Nov. 1st in relation to whether or not AOL is shutting down its message boards. AOL has since deleted the very board that their discussion took place on (oh, the irony), so this is the cache.

AOL user PGroot wrote in response to a message board titled, "Re: AOL closing message boards?": "Read the response to Alley Insider: "AOL Hit List" Examined".

AOL user SGW7011, aka "Sharon" replied:

"Well, that's nice, but she's only explaining what each is, known statuses on some, that have already had a resolution and guesses on others.

Regarding message boards, it's just a guess. While probably reasonably accurate, it's no offical word.

As I mentioned on another board, I emailed someone within aol, that sent my inquiry to someone else, and got this answer from someone somewhat knowledgable with the aol message boards. I'd like to think the response is honest enough, that it's at least the plan at the moment. We know that aol decisions are not set in stone, they change on a whim.

But this is what I was told:

Hi Sharon -- Thanks for your email concerning the Message Boards. AOL is not planning an overall sunset of its Message Boards, but we are taking a critical look at the use and value of the boards. Hundreds of active Message Boards will be migrated to new platforms by the end of the year along with their current content, while boards that experience little or no use will be shut down.

"New platforms" for "active" message boards? "Boards...will be shut down"? AOL is obviously being cryptic - but apparently the AOL message boards, no matter how active they are, will NOT exist in their current form much longer, since we are fast approaching "the end of the year" (just 27 more days until 2009). This is not good news for AOL message board users.

If the person who replied to Sharon - or anyone else in the know at AOL - wants to fill me in I'd be more than glad to post more concise information to clear up any confusion and/or panic, since just the fact that I'm printing this will probably set off a firestorm among AOL message board users.

Updated 12-7-08 with more information for Ficlets users and 1-13-09 with new information on importing Circavie timelines to Dipity.

OK, I'll admit it: I feel bad for my readers. Some of them are already feeling down over the loss of their small but beloved community and their old photo, video and storage sites. Breaking more bad news for them all the time - which is all I do anymore - is not fun for me, either.

The title of the post was inspired by Twitter's mringlein, who does not give the phrase "on fire" too pleasant a connotation.

The latest victim's of AOL's cost-cutting and streamlining measures are two AOL-branded websites: Circavie and Ficlets, which both have devoted, if not huge, fan bases.

AOL is posting about all shut down sites and services on the AIM-branded People Connection Blog so you can simply check it each day for the status of your favorite AOL website or service - not that there's many of either left to choose from.

If you look closely at the stats you'll see the true story behind these shutdowns. It's not just that AOL is cutting costs, but that traffic year-over-year at these sites was never good in the first place and is not good enough now to keep these sites viable.

In the case of Circavie, a website where you create pictorial timelines of personal events, traffic is exactly the same as it was one year ago (roughly 2,000 uniques daily), but that's down from an all-time high of 13,000 daily visitors last November - in other words, Circavie has never done too well for an AOL-branded website since it's launch in July of 2007, and is doing much worse now.

The stats for Ficlets, a website where users work together to create short fictional stories, which launched in March of 2007, tell us pretty much the same story: a peak of 13,700 visits in March of 2007, with traffic hovering today at the 10,000 daily uniques mark - much better than the 4,000 uniques the site saw around this time last year, but still rather dismal for an AOL-branded property.

Update: Unfortunately AOL is telling Ficlets users to simply copy and paste all their entries into Word. People are complaining on the PeopleConnection blog that with perhaps hundreds of entries to back up and save it's going to be a time-consuming, tedious process, but as another commenter suggested, AOL has gotten "too lazy" to get a developer to whip up a simple exporter for Ficlets users.

Fortunately, the person who created Ficlets, Kevin Lawver, created his own Ficlets exporter, and will work on getting the existing content back online by Jan. 16, 2009.

Update #2, 1-13-09: A comment to this post informs us that Dipity (see next paragraph for more info), a service similar to Circavie, now has a free importer you can use to save your Circavie timelines on the Dipity website.

An excellent alternative to Circavie might be Dipity, which lets you create your own timelines pretty much however you want. For group fic writing, LiveJournal actually has tons of communities devoted to it (there's plenty of mature adult content on LiveJournal, though, so check for that before you join any community - if that sort of content bothers you). One way to explore the communities on LJ is to use the site explore page.