What I remember about AOL was their creepy instant messaging service. We used an instant messaging service at IBM in Austin, so I knew what it was, but at IBM we knew everyone on our team, and they were the only people allowed to send us IMs. And for the record, many of us team leads forbade the use of IMs because they became more of a nuisance than a help. AOL made it possible for just about anyone else on AOL to send you an IM. It was a sign of the creepy feature in Facebook to come. Hated it then, still hate it now. But in AOL, members could see when you were online, so they knew if you were ignoring them, which occasionally led to some testy IMs from those being ignored. (A stalkers's paradise was born.) At least with Facebook you can block unwanted people from sending you IMs. As I recall, in AOL you didn't just get a notice/flag for new IMs, a IM box popped up in front of whatever you were viewing, forcing you to deal with it right then!
I do remember being so happy to ditch AOL for a local service provider when support for Macs finally arrived in my city. It was nice to be able to mimic them with some strange sounds followed by a last "
Goodbye" MFs!
