Tag Archives: AOL

04.20.21
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Yahoo, Aol, Verizon Relaunch Sender Portal

Big news for senders from Verizon Media Group, operators of Yahoo and Aol free inboxen: they’ve announced the relaunch of their sender support portal – VMG’s answer to Microsoft’s SNDS or Gmail Postmaster Tools:

Today, we are delighted to unveil the new sender focused portal at https://developer.verizonmedia.com/mail. It highlights features like AMP for email, BIMI, Promotions and others. It’s a place to find documentation and examples but also get support and questions answered.

Marcel Becker, Sr Director Product Management

The announcement hints that more is to come – can’t wait to see whether that will include some version of reputation assessment, or maybe even some spam trap data? Definitely something for email marketers and deliverability professionals to keep an eye on.

05.13.15
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What the Verizon Acquisition of Aol Means to Senders

TL;DR: Not much.

Aol’s inbound mail infrastructure has been pretty wobbly for a while now, at least from the point of view of large senders. Though things seem to have improved since around April of last year, for a while intermittent outtages of their inbound MTAs had becoming something of a recurring challenge, and the punchline for a few jokes traded on Twitter.

Aol was the first to do a lot of cool things in the email space. They were the first to offer feedback loops, whitelisting services, and among the first to provide senders an idea of what their sending reputation might be. But it’s hard to stay in the front of the pack, especially when you’re facing challengers like Yahoo, Google, and Microsoft.

After years of losing eyeballs, Project Phoenix was announced in 2010. It was an ambitious idea that sought to create a slick, unified messaging platform that included mail, SMS, social media, and other channels. It earned kudos from the user community, but it never quite gained the traction it needed to re-position the company in the messaging space. Development on Phoenix was halted after less than a year.

Verizon isn’t shelling out US$4.4-billion for Aol’s eroding email user base, as many others have pointed out. That means I wouldn’t expect Verizon to prioritize any fixes for what may still be broken with Aol mail.

04.22.14
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Aol Follows Suit On DMARC Reject Policy

Aol announced little more than an hour ago that they’ve published a reject policy in their DMARC record, just as Yahoo did around April 6th. Batten down the hatches; here comes another bounce storm:

Today we moved to change our DMARC policy to p=reject. This helps to protect AOL Mail users’ addresses from unauthorized use.

It also stops delivery on what previously would have been considered authorized mail sent on behalf of AOL Mail users via non-AOL servers. If you’re a bulk sender on behalf of AOL addresses, that probably includes mail sent from you.

“Probably”.

I think I’ll hit the sack early tonight. I want to be well-rested for tomorrow. Do I get credit for making the prediction just a few hours ago?

12.16.10
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AOL Project Phoenix Update

Earlier this Fall, I wrote a brief description of how AOL Mail will try to reclaim its earlier e-mail glory with the release of Project Phoenix.

Today, it looks like they’re getting ready to take the wraps off of a limited number of beta accounts are now available on an invite-only basis. Would-be participants can request a Phoenix invitation, and receive a $5 Starbucks gift card for their trouble.

09.17.10
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Reply-All: Minty Pheonix Edition

09.17.10
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Changes Coming to AOL and Yahoo! Inboxes, Too

Much has been written in the last few weeks about big changes to the free e-mail offerings from Google and Microsoft. Hotmail rolled out Wave 4, with Sweep and Time-Traveling Filters that penalize “gray mail” by sweeping it out of the inbox. Gmail’s Priority Inbox now rewards messages that it deems most relevant to the recipient with preferred positioning in the inbox.

In the meantime, AOL and Yahoo! have been working quietly on their own major inbox releases. However, early glimpses at new features hint at altogether different strategies for capturing and holding users’ attention – important changes that may influence how recipients interact with your e-mail and help propagate your message.

It’s been about 20 years since AOL and e-mail became nearly synonymous (“You’ve got mail!”). Today, comScore ranks AOL mail dead last in market share behind Yahoo!, MSN and Google. AOL will attempt to rise from the ashes when they take the wraps off “Project Pheonix” later this year. Few details about specific changes to the user interface have been confirmed, but insiders say we should expect tighter integration with AOL Instant Messenger, SMS messaging and MapQuest. They’re planning a Gmail-like archive feature and enhanced search across users’ e-mail folders. AOL say they will present fewer ads at entry points, but will serve up more targeted advertising when users drill down into AOL’s content sites.

A recent interview with AOL Mail Ops President Brad Garlinghouse also hints at a larger effort to deliver an integrated messaging platform for all of the users’ various inboxes – be they traditional e-mail inboxes at Yahoo!, Gmail or MSN, as well as IM, SMS or social media inboxes. He notes that Internet users now manage an average of 2.4 e-mail addresses, up from 1.9 five years ago. Garlinghouse intimates that Phoenix will position the AOL mail site as a hub for users to manage them all.

Yahoo! has been far less cagey in discussing new features in its upcoming mail release, dubbed “Minty”. Users will be able to update their Facebook status from within their Yahoo! inbox. Earlier this year, Yahoo! made a few other social media moves, announcing partnerships with Twitter and social media game giant Zynga, and the acquisition of location-based social network Koprol.

But the most noticeable changes will be to the user interface. Yahoo! is promising a leaner, faster-loading site that more closely resembles the mobile apps (read: iPad) versions of its offerings. The interface changes are designed to increase market share in non-US markets, where consumer broadband is not as common, and load times can still be an issue for larger percentages of the user base.

It doesn’t appear that either AOL or Yahoo! are planning any major changes to the way it filters or delivers inbound mail in these releases. The message for senders is that social media and e-mail are converging quickly: Google’s abortive attempt to socialize e-mail with Buzz did not spell the end of other efforts, and it’s possible that more than one will succeed. If that happens, senders may have the chance to turn their recipients’ entire social networks into prospects.