[freehunter]

Are you saying AOL wasn't mainstream? The Internet might have been niche as a whole, but out of that, AOL was as mainstream as it got. AOL was synonymous with Internet, like Facebook and Twitter are synonymous with social media.

[mkr-hn]

I said:

> Everyone had an AOL keyword. AOL isn't dead, but it fell hard. Ubiquity isn't enough.

Every business having a Twitter account won't save Twitter any better than everyone having an AOL keyword saved AOL.

[Altay-]

I don't think that's a fair comparison. AOL didn't initially position itself as a portal. It positioned itself as an ISP with a portal.

Had AOL built itself as a web portal like Yahoo from the start it may very well have stayed relevant. I still have business partners (in non tech fields) that use their AOL email and news/portal services.