Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!apple!chuq From: chuq@Apple.COM (Chuq Von Rospach) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac Subject: Re: American Online vs. other Services Message-ID: <38488@apple.Apple.COM> Date: 9 Feb 90 16:45:26 GMT References: <519@janus.Quotron.com> Organization: Fictional Reality: where your dreams can come true Lines: 53 jeff@janus.Quotron.com (jeff marder) writes: >Please compare America Online with other services such as Genie, >Compuserve, etc. I am interested mainly in 1) downloads 2) mac >bulletin boards 3) hobbyist bulletin boards (music, film, etc.) Well, AOL gave Apple employees a pretty reasonable deal to sign up, so being a net-junkie I did and took a look. ABout three hours later I sent them a nice note thanking them and cancelling the account. Why? Well, if you like AppleLink, you'll love AOL. Me, on the other hand.... Also, while it's a perfectly good service (I didn't find anything really wrong with it -- even the applelink interface is okay) I also didn't find anything particularly special about it. It was sort of interchangeable with the half a dozen other systems I deal with, and when I sat down and thought about it, I just couldn't justify signing up for yet another bboard where I coudl read the same stuff (again) that I was already reading on all the other bboards. >Also, is AA a good deal pricewise? Are there any other services on >AA that are paticularly valuable (such as airline ticket purchases)??? The standard deal isn't that bad -- it's comparable to GEnie. Definitely cheaper than CompuServe. It had a decent selection of stuff: the Mac libraries weren't as full as CIS or GEnie, but better than Delphi. Other interests were reasonably well represented (including a section for mystery readers that I haven't seen elsewhere). But it seemed to be a me-too service, and I'm too heavily entrenched on other boards to consider moving unless the deal is awesome. AOL is good, but nothing special. I'm finding (much to my surprise) have be settling in with GEnie as my primary service. Anyone who read the article I wrote in Mac Horizons (may it rest in peace) or my occasional comments on the net here are probably as suprirsed as I am, but while there are still things I really, really hate about the software adn the user interface, it has a significantly lower signal to noise ratio AND if I get under deadline pressures on soemthing I don't have to worry about messages scrolling into dust when I'm not looking. They'll be there when I have time to read them rather than forcing me to find time or lose out on a thread. So for my money, I'd go with GEnie if I had to live with one service. (it's also much cheaper than CompuServe -- so I'll forgive them the interface hacks). -- Chuq Von Rospach <+> chuq@apple.com <+> [This is myself speaking] Rumour has it that Larry Wall, author of RN, is a finalist in the race for the Nobel Peace Prize for his invention of the kill file.