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America Online (AOL) Disc

National Museum of American History

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Object Details

America Online, Inc.
Description
Growing from the services of PlayNET and Quantum Link, America Online (AOL) was founded in 1991 to provide Internet and email access to customers through its web portal with a user-friendly graphical interface. AOL service was originally sold by the hour. In 1993 AOL began mailing discs to prospective customers in one of the largest and most aggressive direct-mail campaigns ever. Discs contained the software needed to use AOL and provided a few hours of free service. This 3.5-inch floppy disk was mailed around 1995, and included fifteen hours of free AOL access. As the number of AOL users swelled to around eight million by 1996, AOL discs became ubiquitous in America’s mailboxes and the log-on greeting of “you’ve got mail” permeated the cultural consciousness. As other Internet service providers and broadband access entered the market, AOL discs began to offer hundreds and thousands of free hours.
References:
Wendy Grossman, Net.wars (New York: New York University Press, 1997).
For information on AOL’s disc campaign, see http://www.quora.com/Jan-Brandt/answers. Jan Brandt served as AOL’s Chief Marketing Officer from 1993 until 2003.
Credit Line
Gift of Bernard S. Finn
ca 1998
ID Number
2010.3015.05
catalog number
2010.3015.05
nonaccession number
2010.3015
Object Name
software
Physical Description
plastic (overall material)
paper (overall material)
cellophane (overall material)
Measurements
overall: 12.2 cm x 19 cm x .3 cm; 4 13/16 in x 7 1/2 in x 1/8 in
place made
United States: Virginia, Vienna
See more items in
Medicine and Science: Computers
Computers & Business Machines
American Enterprise
Exhibition
American Enterprise
Exhibition Location
National Museum of American History
National Museum of American History
Record ID
nmah_1395721
Metadata Usage (text)
CC0
GUID (Link to Original Record)
http://n2t.net/ark:/65665/ng49ca746ad-378b-704b-e053-15f76fa0b4fa
America Online Software Disk
There are restrictions for re-using this image. For more information, visit the Smithsonian's Terms of Use page .
International media Interoperability Framework
IIIF provides researchers rich metadata and media viewing options for comparison of works across cultural heritage collections. Visit the IIIF page to learn more.
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