Email Aggregation Launches on AOL.com

New York, NY – September 10, 2008 – AOL announced the launch of a new feature on AOL.com, http://aol.com, that allows consumers to access multiple email services from one convenient online location. The move comes as the company has revealed plans to revamp AOL.com to offer more consumer choice and customization. Starting today and continuing over the coming weeks, AOL.com will debut new features that give users more control over the site’s displayed content and services, giving them the ability to add their own web links in the main navigation bar and access custom feeds from social networking services, local news, and RSS enabled sites directly from the main page of AOL.com.

“With the launch of mail aggregation, AOL will be the first among the big traditional portals to offer a centralized email experience,” commented Bill Wilson, Executive Vice President of Programming, AOL.  “We know that consumers today have multiple email accounts on different services to keep tabs on daily, and we want to make it easier for them.  This is an important first step in opening up AOL.com and giving users the ability to populate the AOL.com homepage with content and services they use on a daily basis, regardless of where it lives.”

The new mail feature gives users easy access to email services from Yahoo, Gmail and Hotmail, in addition to AOL and AIM Mail, allowing users to check email without having to surf from site to site.  Users can quickly and easily access their email accounts from different providers by visiting AOL.com and clicking on the email icons.

The Mail Preview Panels give users a quick look at their AOL, Gmail and Yahoo accounts, so users get mail counts for mail and they can see new messages as they arrive.  By clicking on an individual message users can navigate directly to it.  AOL has also provided a link for each mail provider to launch a window to compose a message with just one click.

In related news, AOL.com also debuted an extended navigation bar, offering direct access to a wider variety of the company’s industry-leading content and services.  New additions to the content directory include popular sites such as TMZ, StyleList, ParentDish, Wallet Pop, Asylum and more.

Over the next eight weeks, AOL.com will launch new tools and features to further personalize the experience, opening AOL.com up to third party content and services for the first time.  Upcoming additions to AOL.com include a “keyhole” view of their social networks that will allow consumers to manage all their social networking feeds from one location, a customizable RSS feed reader and, the ability to add a link to any web page directly to the main navigation bar, among other enhancements.

"For a portal to be relevant to consumers today, it has to recognize that users seek a variety of different experiences and connections with their various networks and information sources," added Wilson.  "AOL is embracing this with the new AOL.com, becoming the first truly open portal experience offered by one of the big traditional portals."

About AOL
AOL is a global Web services company that operates some of the most popular Web destinations, offers a comprehensive suite of free software and services, runs one of the largest Internet access businesses in the U.S., and provides a full set of advertising solutions. A majority-owned subsidiary of Time Warner Inc., AOL LLC and its subsidiaries have operations in the U.S., Europe, Canada and Asia. Learn more at AOL.com.