[AOL] Launching OpenRide

It's all over the news now that AOL has launched their own browser software called OpenRide, in line with their current thrust to offer more of their previously paid services for free.




The approach they've taken is to divide the window into four panels to cover the major AOL services, namely: Email, Web Browsing, IM and Media in the four panels. The philosophy behind it is that users will more likely want to be able to easily access all of their AOL services from one window rather than resorting to multiple sessions, applications or tabs.

Frankly, I'm not that impressed with the offering. While it is an interesting move that will surely draw a fair amount of their core user base at this time, there's nothing significantly impressive about the application that will really "WOW" people and drive them to switch over to AOL to try their services and read or view their content. At the moment, it's nothing more than a novelty rather than a serious contender in the browser market or even in the Web Services market.

At least they're trying, right?