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December 12, 2002

Brace for Hypocrisy Impact

Good Experience interviews Rick Robinson, AOL VP of Community Products:

Q: AOL is getting into weblogs?

A: In a way, we've had them for a while. A few years ago, in our Digital City area, we called them "comment boards." Type your thoughts, click a button, and they're published sequentially on the page. It was essentially the same thing as blogging, only it was a group environment rather than one author publishing to many readers. So yes, we're looking at that type of environment for members to publish in.

Weblogs, over the last several years, have migrated to replace, in some cases, people's home pages. It's natural that the blog and the home page would combine. And when you remember that AOL has the largest collection of home pages in the world, it kinda gets interesting.

Just think... 35 million AOLers blogging. Suddenly all the populist rhetoric of the blogosphere will be confronted with... real populism. Most of the ones old enough to remember The September That Never Ended shouldn't like this much better.