After we reinvented the web, we'll reinvent e-mail

AOL, the company that used to base its business model on the idea that it should do the thinking for its customers because they are too stupid to do it for themselves, will bring that same brilliant ease of use to email, claims Cnet.

The news site alleges that AOL in 2005 will launch a free webbased email service like Hotmail, Gmail or Yahoo mail.

SV Sleuth is clueless about the business rationale behind this decision. The last thing we need is yet another email address (at least getting a Gmail account was cool because Google is cool. AOL is… wel… trailing Google).

AOL of course is the ISP that for years tried to sell its customers access to a dumbed down version of the internet through a special application leading to special AOL-owned content. The model made sense in the early days of the internet, but reality has caught up since

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• Silicon Valley Sleuth