The
most horrifying thing about AOL's claims to have 50%
of the browser market is that AOL offers the worst browsing
experience in the universe.
AOL
is a perfect 21st Century example of a huge corporation
creating a monopoly and forcing it's limitations down
the throats of the unsuspecting public. I suppose you
think this is just more of my sarcastic hyperbole. But
no, it's really true. Through spending a fortune on
the most aggressive marketing, and by taking
advantage of the general public's fear of computer learning
curves, AOL convinced a large segment of the public
that it IS the Internet and that its low levels of service
are the Internet standard. AOL targets Internet "newbies"
and lazy minded people with their promise to make the
Internet simple enough for a moron to experience. Apparently,
a lot of people think of themselves as morons and bought
into the abysmally poor level of service in order to
avoid . . . feeling like morons.
Once a large number of the public had signed up for
AOL service, retailers and small business people were
forced to accept the ABYSMALLY LOW STANDARD of browser
display in order to access those millions of AOL consumers.
That means that anyone who wants their business to be
accessible by AOL customers must forego most of the
interactive elements and excellent visual display that
make the Internet an interesting experience in the first
place. Alas, so many AOL customers, convinced that they
are too stupid to figure out how to use a real browser,
are now afraid to try. The result is that many still
don't know the difference AOL and real internet access.
Bandwidth Minimalists and Information Only Malcontents
can now leave the room, because the following information
will not pertain to you.
Most
people don't know that AOL uses a proprietary technology
to change the file endings of graphic images and to
compress them into outright ugliness.
This
is somewhat like putting a filter on your color TV that
forces it to display only black and white . . . but
without telling you about it. AOL users can go to their
"Preferences" and change the compression settings
and get rid of some of the blotches and splotches AOL
has introduced into the graphic display. But few AOL
users know about this preference setting, and in any
case, they are so afraid of feeling like . . . morons
. . . that they apparently don't even try to touch those
settings. Anyway, that wouldn't take care of the entire
problem.
The AOL browser itself does not support most of
the newest and best features of IE or Netscape, such
as Java applets or javascript or tables . . . oh the
list of unsupported features is soooooo loooooong.
AOL
members have to go through AOL servers, using
IE or Netscape, to really access the Internet and see
it all as it was meant to be seen.
Alas, too many AOL users don't even know how to choose
another browser to view through their AOL connection.
I've seen this time and time again: the fear of clicking
on the buttons on their AOL interface keeps people from
even learning how to enter a url in the address line
to view websites outside of AOL. In fact, a lot of AOL
users don't even know that there is anything outside
of AOL, so they can't even guess what they are not seeing.
Remember
that AOL was originally developed as a private membership
with it's own content, and adding access to the rest
of the Internet is somewhat of an afterthought. And
they grew so fast they do not have enough server power
to provide true accessibility to the rest of the Internet.
Although
it has a huge membership, in order to reach them, your
content must squeeze through a very small window. If
you are building a retail site and your market is the
general public, you won't want to forego the AOL population.
But you will also have to adjust your design standards
accordingly. What you would ideally like to do on your
site may simply not work well in AOL, because it's just
not possible to get millions of people who are afraid
of computers to reset their browser preferences.
As
a solution, many people put notices on their sites,
directing visitors to instructions on how to adjust
their browsers. And some people actually create more
than one website: one for AOL, and one for the "real"
internet. And . . . some people just accept that the
lowest common denominator has set the standards for
the rest of us.
In
conclusion . . . when planning your site design, you
want to think very carefully about what your target
market is, and the degree of cross browser compatibility
you think you really need for your product or services.
If you want great graphics and many bells and whistles
. . . it's a lot harder to make that happen in AOL browsers.
If you want to reach a whole lot of people who fear
that they are morons but who might buy your products
or services . . . I guess you'll have to conform to
the current, abysmal browser experience AOL provides.
