The portal experiment has quietly moved to full version status, as AOL.com’s repurposing as an audience driven presence online continues.
Web-based email? Check.
Instant messaging client? Got it.
With voice chat options? They’re in there.
Content to draw visitors? Heh, yeah, got that, no problem, we’ve got music, video, news, the works, and we haven’t even hit Daddy Parsons up yet for more.
Search engine? Well, we have one, and it’s pretty cool but mumblemuttergrumblegripe.
Sorry? I said, we’re still enhancing search results with Google, dammit.
Ok, fine, how about sponsored search? MuttermumbleProvidedByAThirdParty.
AOL noted on its testing web site that the AOL.com portal is no longer in beta, TechWeb reports. After years of keeping its content hemmed into a walled garden for subscribers only, AOL decided that its survival rested on the lucrative promise of online advertising.
The scent of freshly printed money has brought AOL into the open, and its products and services place it directly in competition primarily with Yahoo. Both online destinations offer a variety of services to their users; both even have made efforts to extend their services to mobile platforms.
But Yahoo still has the edge, as its search engine and formidable advertising options, which it owns, bring in a big slice of search market share and plenty of ad revenue. AOL still relies on outside partners to help in both places.
That’s not a recipe for long-term growth, especially since Time Warner chairman Richard Parsons has stated publicly that deriving value from AOL is a top priority. AOL partnership and takeover rumors have been thriving in the media, but none have come to fruition.
Without a stronger share of search queries, and a way to keep more ad revenue in-house, AOL faces a tough battle against not just Yahoo, but MSN and Google too. MSN has been feverishly building its own advertising network, and Google only lacks a repository of content to complement its services.
AOL looks like it could throw a scare into all three of those companies. Those third-party sponsored searches have to lose the “third-party” designation for that to happen. We’ll have to wait and see how they accomplish this.
David Utter is a staff writer for Murdok covering technology and business. Email him here.
