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What Good is an AOL Email Account?

August 3, 2006 by debbie T | Internet • Web Development

Since I heard the news that AOL opened up their “gated garden” for all to use, I didn’t think I cared.

But after reading a post by Chris on the Wise Women mailing list, I realized that opening an AOL email account would be great for testing purposes.

So off I went to sign up. By the way, they ask for a lot of personal information that really isn’t necessary! I lied for most of it, since it really isn’t any of their business what my true birthday and phone number are. But I am sure I will now start to get crappy AOL snail mail at my P.O. Box.

Okay, so on to my first test. I headed to one of my web sites, and signed up for the updates list. Everything went smoothly, so I checked the AOL mail inbox for my reply-confirmation email. Nothing. I hit the new mail button several times, but nope, nothing new.

Then I checked the Spam folder…and what a surprise (insert sarcasm here), there was my confirmation email!

I hit the “Not Spam” button and the email moved to my inbox; I clicked on the link in the email to finalize the subscription confirmation.

I guess all is well, oh except for the realization that any AOL visitors trying to subscribe to my updates mailing list won’t actually be able to subscribe unless they are savvy enough to know to check in their spam folder. big SIGH!

The problem, as I see it, is the spam folder isn’t like the inbox folder; you don’t get an unread mail count (at least not by default) so the user has no clue if anything new arrived in the spam folder.

Anyone want to join me as I chant “I hate AOL, I hate AOL, I hate AOL”