The strength of AOL once was its massive membership of dial-up users which all but shattered the nearest competition, but as low cost broadband offerings have become more widespread, AOL has had to fall back on its second strength: exclusive members content. Around the middle of this month they are finally planning on opening up this sacred content to the web. A long holdout in coming, but it might just be the much needed ticket to save their sinking ship.

The company plans to launch in mid-August a new portal that will make the services and content that were previously available only to AOL subscribers free to everyone.

Before snickering too loudly, check out some of AOL’s areas like Dan Hurley’s Amazing Instant Novelist area (keyword: novel). For the longest time we kept our subscription to AOL just for that area. eNovel made an intent to buy them at one point, but it seems that deal fell through. This is one of several gem AOL members only areas.

Alas, cancelling AOL service has been a big part of their problem, next to holding onto a slowly dying dialup model too long. They will do almost anything to keep their customers from bailing, but in being that aggressive they’ve turned more people off than on. And AOL’s pains have resulted in several job cuts over the last few years. Add that to the 92 million stolen email addresses and it all equals an iceberg in the ocean.

Although AOL might be on the canvas and drowning in a sea of their own CDs, they aren’t ready to suck the water into their lungs. Yet.

Did this post make you go hmm?

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