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AOL to Offer 5GB of Online Storage

By Nate Mook, BetaNews

August 3, 2006, 3:18 PM

AOL on Thursday announced it would begin offering all Web users 5GB of online storage through its Xdrive product, part of the company's new initiative to make its services available without cost. Separately, AOL said it plans to cut 5,000 jobs.

Through Xdrive, individuals can back up files like photos, documents, music, videos, and more. Uploaded content can be access through any PC or mobile device with a Web connection, AOL said. Users can even share files with others, as well as automatically upload e-mail attachments.

AOL will not charge users for the service, which is currently priced at $10 per month. The free Xdrive will be available to anyone with an AOL or AIM screen name starting next month.

A premium offering with 50GB of storage will be available to those needing more space for a fee that has yet to be announced.

"People are accumulating personal digital assets at a fast pace, especially in areas like digital photos and videos," said AOL Digital Services president John McKinley. "Yet our in-home research shows that few people are taking steps to protect their digital memories from accidental loss or destruction."

Xdrive will join a number of other AOL services that the company plans to make available to non-subscribers in September. The company plans to continue offering its subscription dial-up service, but will no longer aggressive market it to consumers.

The charges will affect AOL's workforce of about 19,000 employees. 5,000 layoffs are expected to take place within the next six months, with notifications expected in October. AOL is also looking to sell its Internet access businesses in France, Germany and the UK.

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By luklima

posted Aug 6, 2006 - 11:33 AM

People outside US will be able to sign for these things, I am trying to sign for a free account but it asks for a US adress anf phone number.
Anyone?

Luklima

Score: 0

By yanike

posted Aug 5, 2006 - 2:42 AM

If you're with AOL, you know to use the AOL Communicator. It's way faster than Mozilla Thunderbird and the AIM client is super fast with mail alert, mail features, address book and more. No ads at all! AOL is on point with the AOL Communicator.

BTW nasserd,
noobs and advanced users use AOL and stop hating so hard. Try AOL communicator out and tell me which is faster and better. You don't have to be running the AOL client btw(by the way) to use communicator.

Score: 0

By nasserd

posted Aug 4, 2006 - 8:02 AM

BTW noobs, you're all forgetting a very important thing:

Anyone remember what Xdrive was *before* AOL bought them? Yup, they were an online storage provider that had tiered services/pricing allowing people to also share files (one of the "original" streamload systems).

So, AOL client is back-to-basics (product is free; ISP is not), X-Drive is back-to-basics, AIM's back to basics (Triton blows; AIM Pro's better UI), WinAmp's back to basics (WinAmp5 cleaned up s*** from WinAmp3). What we need now is ICQ to be re-established (except for the Israeli militant aspects) and maybe they'll be back in good graces.

Score: 0

By ladylust

posted Aug 5, 2006 - 1:13 AM

Whatever they were will be no longer... onces AOL gets a hold of them.... They will become a part of the beast.

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

edited Aug 4, 2006 - 11:07 AM

Excellent post.

Start off by calling the entire group noobs.

Brilliant. You just guaranteed 10% of folks *might* read your post...*if* they're sufficiently bored.

General rule of thumb: If you actually have a point to make, don't start off by calling everyone names. You'll be quickly dismissed as a flaming retard. (Whether you are or not)

....just sayin'.

Score: 0

By nasserd

posted Aug 4, 2006 - 5:01 PM

Likewise; your comment was almost useful.

Not being a flaming retard (although I might be retarded otherwise), I knew I'd catch the attention of those who are not newbies (which means they'd skip over sentence and might catch the remainder of the post) and it would thus bring back a sense of nostalgia for those good ol' days.

Of course, should the reader be a said newbie, then chances are they never knew about the former X-Drive company and the remainder of the post did not concern them, anyway.

At either rate, I blame this heat wave =)

Score: 0

By solarisguru

posted Aug 5, 2006 - 6:24 AM

Nasserd's post worked exactly as he had planned!! AHH!!!

Score: 0

By wincement

edited Aug 4, 2006 - 7:18 PM

Hmm... but the "BTW noobs," introduction implied that you were talking only to the noobs, therefore not talking to the not noobs? =p

Score: 0

By cranbers

posted Aug 4, 2006 - 6:56 AM

This is what AOL is doing, now granted I don't see how it can be a all of a sudden thing but who knows.

1. Becoming free will significantly drive "users" to their AOL software and web page. This is because people who had them in the past may look into it just because it is free, where they cancelled because they didn't see the value in paying 15 dollars or 25 dollars a month, on top of their broadband.

2. The more users, the more advertising dollars the more dollars the better they do. The more popular they get the more advertising dollars. This is how Yahoo, Google and msn make a lot of money. Where would Google be without this business model? Not here that is for sure.

Like I said how they can afford to just drop millions of existing users subscription revenue instantly I have no clue. But I am sure there will be a very large sudden user increase because of the free business model. I know I will be using it again just for fun, maybe hang ou in the chat rooms or something and see what else they offer now.

I might just be uninstalling their software 25 mins later though and saying r.i.p. however though too.

I use yahoo for pictures and Gmail for mail, I use Google for search Google for their calender app and that's about it. So where does AOL fit in their? I guess no where, they don't really offer any services beneficial to anyone except for social. Which is the only thing I really care about. But in the years past I have moved on and out of that kind of socializing. So now that AOL is no longer a isp, but a content/media provider. I guess their days are still numbered unless they can do something better then everyone else. But it looks dark and shadowy none the less.

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Aug 4, 2006 - 11:09 AM

They can now distribute warez faster and easier than rapidshare. ;)

Score: 0

By ladylust

edited Aug 4, 2006 - 6:13 AM

If there are no download caps they are going to get raped with bandwith. Thats just around the sweet spot for the average DVD rip - a few 100 links to various popular movies and AOL will wish they never started this. They will have to cap people or the download rates will be in the petabyte range.

Score: 0

By Joe Dirt

posted Aug 3, 2006 - 11:11 PM

Man they are really grasping here.

This must be a huge last ditch effort before they have to file Chapter 11. :D

Score: 0

By treworld

posted Aug 3, 2006 - 9:15 PM

Where the hell are they getting the money to do this??? The management team at AOL is really stupid. This service will not last... I can see that now.

Score: 0

By xyzcb1

posted Aug 3, 2006 - 9:45 PM

why? do you think every gmail account is stuff with 2+ gigs?

Score: 0

By ladylust

posted Aug 4, 2006 - 6:11 AM

2 gigs , but you cant share it... this is saying you can share with friends? say 10,000 of your closest warez friends that love that movie you just uploaded? Plus you can just join Gmail you have to be invited.

Score: 0

By xyzcb1

posted Aug 4, 2006 - 11:45 AM

you missed my point. my point was saying, althought gmail offer 2gigs, how many actually use more than 10% of it?

yousendit and rapidshare probably used more bandwidth than anything else. and they still survive. i don't see how aol will die any time soon

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

edited Aug 4, 2006 - 12:25 PM

Ah, but when you add the ability to share...?

I am sure the 5GB will quickly become "too limited" for certain groups. ;)

Score: 0

By wincement

posted Aug 6, 2006 - 8:22 PM

Not when they create 25 free accounts...

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Aug 4, 2006 - 8:53 AM

Plus you can just join Gmail you have to be invited.

This is no longer correct.

https://www.google.com/accounts/SmsMailSignup1

Score: 0

By yanike

posted Aug 3, 2006 - 8:19 PM

How about we wait and see what AOL does instead of predicting a bad future for AOL like weatherman predict forecast. AOL has stepped up alot recently. The all in one client is very nice and useful. I wonder what AOL 10 is gonna be like? I'm thinking something better than before. I'm sure AOL knows they have to step it up a bunch to stay in today's tech world.

Score: 0

By mjm01010101

posted Aug 3, 2006 - 8:15 PM

What makes you think 5 GB storage will remain the same? AOL itself hasn't been the same service year to year.

Wait it out, somebody with actual technical ability will bring this to fruition, say google or MS, and with a lot less hassle.

adwords versus banner ads? yeah, I know which I'd prefer.

Score: 0

By ZenWarrior

posted Aug 3, 2006 - 6:12 PM

AOL must be hurting far more than we know. The kitchen sink will be the next free thing they'll offer people in order to continue selling ads.

And given there is no such thing as a free lunch, I'm wondering how these moves (ploys?) by AOL will end up biting any takers in their butts.

Score: 0

By yanike

edited Aug 3, 2006 - 5:31 PM

I'm just gonna be real. AOL is trying to break their back to help everyone on the web. 5GB is more than Yahoo and Google services combined. People are so stupid sometimes. I'm all for AOL!

Wincement,
GS5 is what you would call a d*ck. I bet you anything GS5 will be using the storage like everyone else will.

castiglione,
Streamload is awesome :)

Score: 0

By GS5

posted Aug 3, 2006 - 4:32 PM

Good luck trying to upload 5gb on a AOL connection :-) lol

Score: 0

By wincement

posted Aug 3, 2006 - 4:37 PM

"AOL on Thursday announced it would begin offering all Web users 5GB of online storage..."

Not just for AOL dialup users. Everyone.

Score: 0

By GS5

posted Aug 3, 2006 - 4:58 PM

Yeah wincement, I got that part.
So, what's your point?

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Aug 3, 2006 - 5:23 PM

Point being many WEB USERS have high-speed connections.

Score: 0

By xprizex

posted Aug 3, 2006 - 6:53 PM

Guys, I don't think GS5 is being literal. He's just bashing AOL. He doesn't seem to like AOL very much. lol

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Aug 4, 2006 - 8:51 AM

Neither do I, but this actually intrigues me.

Score: 0

By wincement

edited Aug 4, 2006 - 10:55 AM

Same here. I can see using this for a number of different reasons. ...IF it's all it's cracked up to be.

Score: 0

By castiglione

posted Aug 3, 2006 - 3:54 PM

Bah.. Streamload offers 5 times more than that for free.

Score: 0

By wincement

posted Aug 3, 2006 - 4:29 PM

Streamload has limitations though:

25MB maximum file size.
1GB bandwidth per month.

1GB/month!? That means it would take over 2 years to download everything just *once* after you upload it. No thanks.

Score: 0

By wincement

edited Aug 3, 2006 - 3:46 PM

Very... very... nice.

See? I told you guys there were better ways to share huge files than Lycos mail. Now AOL is giving you an easy, free way.

No excuses now. =p

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Aug 3, 2006 - 3:40 PM

*gasp*

Warez users rejoice!

This is going to *kill* AOL unless they have some magnificent new way to stop warez users from posting and sharing copyrighted material on their servers.

Score: 0

By GS5

posted Aug 3, 2006 - 5:08 PM

Oh c'mon PC_TOOL, we are talking about AOL here. I'm sure they'll find a way to f.u.c.k it up without the help of warez users or other outside help :-) lol

Score: 0

By TomA102210

posted Aug 3, 2006 - 6:58 PM

Oh c'mon PC_TOOL, we are talking about AOL here. I'm sure they'll find a way to * * * * it up without the help of warez users or other outside help :-) lol

----------------------------------------------
How would you know, GS5? lol, by the way.

Score: 0

By GS5

posted Aug 3, 2006 - 7:30 PM

Because it’s AOL:-) lol

Remember ICQ??? AOL took the #1 IM and in the shortest time complete destroyed it. Back in the day that was pretty much the only IM people knew about and used. That is, until AOL got their hands on it. How they managed to kill ICQ that fast is a mystery to me. Seriously, if you want Microsoft to go under just let the people at AOL run it for a week. ;-)lol

Score: 0

By nasserd

posted Aug 4, 2006 - 7:58 AM

GS5, I LOVE your insights!!!

Score: 0

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