AOL Homepage Blog

Customize Your Page

Tracy Highnote — 2009-06-09T13:03:00+00:00

We're all about giving you more customization!

A couple of months ago, we introduced Expand and Collapse capability onto sections of AOL.com. Now we are taking it a step further in the center column of the page. The new functionality allows you to add and remove content areas to the middle of the page.

It's super easy to customize. First, click on the new "Customize Your Page" button located on the right just below the sign in area.

Once you've clicked the button, an editable area will open up in the top of the middle column. See below:

Don't care to see Entertainment News? Uncheck the box, click on Save Changes and that content area will be removed from the page. If you change your mind later you can always click on the Customize button again to open the edit area and check the box.

Want to add the new widgets experience with eBay, Flickr, Stock Watch and more? Simply check the Widgets box and click Save Changes.

If you come to AOL.com one day and your content changes have been cleared, it could be because you cleared your browser cookies. Click here to learn more about how we store your preferences.

We hope you enjoy this new functionality! Do let us know what you think and what other capabilities you'd like to see added to AOL.com. :)
The AOL Homepages Team

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Favorite Widgets - eBay, Flickr, Stock Watch and More

Tracy Highnote — 2009-06-09T13:02:00+00:00

Do you love eBay? Are you a fan of browsing cool pics on Flickr? Do you want to check in periodically on select stocks and see how they are performing? Our new Favorite Widgets experience will let you do all of these things and more!

Starting off, we've got a cool new way for you to look for items on eBay and track them right from your homepage. For detailed info on what you can do with eBay on AOL, click here.

The next option, Sticky Note, is the perfect place for you to keep track of your grocery list, party planning reminders or even driving directions when you can't find a pen and paper. Try clicking on Options to change the color of your sticky note and to select your font of choice. Need the info on the go? No problem -- just click the "Print sticky" link in the bottom right corner. Want to erase the info in one fail swoop? Just click on "Clear sticky" to wipe the slate clean.

Do you love photos? If yes, you will be thrilled to hear that you can now browse Flickr photos right on your homepage. You can choose between Recent and Popular photos, and you can view images individually or in a grid. (The image below shows the grid option.) For more detailed info on what you can do with Flickr on AOL, click here.

Next up is the Stock Watch widget which is sure to please all of you finance gurus out there. Click on "Edit Watchlist" to add or remove additional stock symbols to your list. Not sure of a company's symbol? There's a handy "Symbol Lookup" link on the Edit Watchlist screen.

Finally, we have a Day & Time Calendar widget. This is a quick and easy way to check today's date and time whenever you like right on your page. You can also use the arrows to flip from month to month to check dates. The timestamp can also be used as a nifty timer!

We hope you get a lot of great use out of this widget collection. As always, we'd love to hear what you think about this new feature, and please let us know if there are similar widgets you'd like to see added.

Cheers!
The AOL Homepages Team

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eBay on AOL

Sanjay Nayar — 2009-06-09T13:01:00+00:00

We are really excited to bring all you eBay users a new way to view and track auctions directly on your homepage. In the new Favorite Widgets experience, you will see a brand-new eBay widget. With this new widget, you can now track multiple auctions right from AOL.

When you first see the eBay widget, you'll notice an Search Ebay box as well as links for hot eBay auctions going on right now. If you are looking for something specific, just type the term into the search field and click Search. You'll see results for auctions that match what you are looking for. In the example below, I have searched for "kayak" as an example.

If you put your mouse over any of the small pictures on the left side of the search results, you'll get even more information about the auction. Depending on what the seller has provided in the auction, there may be different information available in this view.

If its something that strikes your fancy and you might be interested in keeping an eye on to see what happens with the auction, you can click on the "Track on AOL" button and this will add it to your Tracked Items list. You'll notice that when you click this button, it will change to "Stop Tracking" to allow you to take it off your list if you'd like. I'll show you how to do that later in the post. If and when you're ready to make your move on the auction, you can click on the link for any of the item titles and go off to eBay directly to try your luck at bidding!

To see all of the items that you are tracking, just click on the link for Tracked Items which is just above the Search box.

Here you'll see the list of all of the items you are tracking including how much time is left, the current price and how many bids there are on the auction. You can also put your cursor over the image to see the more detailed information. You can add up to 20 items. Don't want to track something any more? Just click "Stop Tracking" and it will be removed from the list. Want to search for something else? Just click on the Search link and you're ready to find more great eBay items.

We think this module is a great tool to be able to get you get a quick glance of all the auctions you are tracking to make sure you don't miss out on winning cool stuff! Please let us know what you think about the new eBay experience.

Learn more about the other cool things you can do with the Favorite Widgets experience.

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A Fun Way to View Flickr Photos

Sanjay Nayar — 2009-06-09T13:00:00+00:00

For you photography lovers, a great new widget we have added as part of the Favorite Widgets experience is a Flickr experience. If you aren't familiar with it, Flickr is a photo management and sharing site. The Flickr widget lets you view Flickr photos directly from your homepage!

You can access the Flickr widget by clicking on the tab in the Favorite Widgets module (you will likely see eBay as the initial tab).

When you click on the tab, you will see a grid of 10 of the most recent photos. If you put your mouse over any of the images, you can see a larger view of the photo. See below what a mouseover image looks like:

A fun way to use the widget is to customize the photos you want to see on your page. If you click on the Options link in the top right of the widget, you will bring up a screen to customize your photo viewing.

You have the option to view either "Popular" or "Most Recent" photos. "Popular" is based on Flickr's way of finding interesting photos from number of comments or number of their users who save as a favorite. "Most Recent" is exactly that -- photos that have recently been uploaded to Flickr.

You will also see two fields for "Tag" and "Member". You can narrow the photos that you see by using these features. Tags are like keywords or labels that are added to a photo to make it easier to find later. So if you put the tag of "bulldog puppies" and then click save, then you'll only see popular or most recent photos that users have tagged to include bulldog puppies. If there aren't any photos available for what you are looking for, you'll get a message letting you know.

Similarly, if you know of Flickr users you can add member names to see their photos. Remember that you'll only see their photos if that user is lucky enough to have one of their pictures included in what Flickr deems interesting/popular or if there are part of recent uploads.

You'll also see that you have the ability to either view one large image at a time or go for sensory overload and have a grid view of 10 at a time. Just choose whichever you like best! You can always use the forward and backward buttons to scroll through all the available photos.

One important note is that due to commercial licensing agreements with Flickr, we can only show you images that users have appropriately copyrighted using Creative Commons as publicly available.

You can read more about that here if you are interested: http://www.flickr.com/creativecommons. It is due to these restrictions that you may not find your own photos if you are trying to search for them. You can change your own license type to Attribution Creative Commons at http://www.flickr.com/account/prefs/license/?from=privacy to be able to view your photos through the widget, but be sure to understand which license type is right for you.

We hope you like flipping through cool photos as much as we do. As always, we would love to hear your feedback!

Learn more about the other cool things you can do with the Favorite Widgets experience.

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Five Fun & Fabulous New Themes

Tracy Highnote — 2009-04-28T07:45:00+00:00

Last month we debuted a new homepage theme -- pink! We got lots of great feedback on additional themes that users would like to see. So, this month we're debuting FIVE new themes for your consideration! In fact, we've added so many new ones that we have also created a new way for you to view and add themes to your page. It's super easy to use! Check it out below.

First, click on the "More" link or drop-down arrow in the upper-right corner of AOL.com:

You will see a new selection area slide open with a larger strip of theme buttons appear:

The current theme you have selected for your page will be highlighted. If you mouse over another theme, you will see it highlight and will be able to read the theme name. Clicking on a theme will allow you to see it applied to the page and you can decide if you want to keep it or try another.

Whichever theme you select last will be the one that is applied and saved as your new theme. Once you are done and you want to close the theme selector, simply click the "Close" link or upward-facing arrow in the upper right:

If at some point you delete your cookies, you will probaby lose your theme setting and will need to reselect it. Click here for more info on how we store your settings.

Oh, and speaking of the new themes, here are some teaser snapshots of the five new ones!

ULTRAMARINE:

SPRING:

IMAGINE:

BEACH:

JAPAN:

We hope you enjoy these as much as we do. Please continue to leave us requests for new themes to add in the future. :)

The AOL Homepages Team

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RSS Feed Browser Is Just One Click Away

Tracy Highnote — 2009-04-28T07:40:00+00:00

We launched our most recent version of AOL.com with a nifty RSS Feed Browser at the bottom of the page. Since then, we have heard from numerous users who have expressed a desire to have access to it higher up on the screen. We've made this request a reality by putting the RSS Feed Browser in a tab just below the AOL logo area. We've also taken the opportunity to expand the sizing and add some new functionality.

Here's where to find the RSS Feed Browser:

Clicking on the RSS Feeds tab will take you to a full-on RSS Feed Browser page as seen below. You can also get to it by going to http://www.aol.com/tab/reader.

An awesome new option is the "Expand" link you will see in the upper right corner. Click on it to get full-size images if the feed provider publishes photos. Here's what that view looks like:

Another piece of functionality that's kind of a hidden surprise is an additional expand option that allows you to span the whole page with a select feed's stories. To locate this option, hover your cursor between the "Feed" and "Stories" sections as seen below and a highlighted strip will appear with an arrow you can click to expand:

Click on the arrow to open the feed up to the full width of the page. Doing so will look like this:

Pretty cool, eh? If you want to go back to the normal view, simply hover your cursor to the left of the "Stories" section and another highlighted line will appear with a button to collapse it back to the normal width. And if you no longer want to view images with your feeds, you can click on the "List" link in the upper right of the page.

Click here for more information about the RSS Feed Browser's capabilities (how to add categories, feeds, etc.).

Please do let us know what you think of our latest updates!
The AOL Homepages Team

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Keep Up With Twitter on AOL.com

Tracy Highnote — 2009-04-24T16:00:00+00:00

Do you Twitter and Tweet? Are you Twitterific? If the answer is yes, then we want to make sure you know how easy it is to keep up with your tweets and update your status anytime to let people know what you are up to right from your AOL homepage.

To try out the AOL.com Twitter experience, check out the My Networks experience on the right side of the page. Oh yes, and we have AIM, Facebook, MySpace and Bebo too!

Click here for more information on My Networks.

Have a great day!
The AOL Homepages Team

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You've Got More Control

Tracy Highnote — 2009-03-12T11:45:00+00:00

We've added an exciting new feature that will allow you to tailor your home page more to your preferences. This feature is one that we've received requests for in our feedback, and it's just one of the many ways we are striving to make AOL.com the ideal home page experience.

The new functionality allows you to collapse or expand select sections of the page. If you see a downward-facing arrow to the left of the title of a content area, then this means you can click it to either hide or show the content inside.

Below is an image showing an expanded content area -- Sports News.
You'll see a downward-facing arrow next to the title:

Let's say that you aren't currently interested in Sports News and want to minimize it on your page.
One click to the arrow will allow you to hide the Sports News content, which will look like this:

To see the Sports News content again, click the arrow pointing right to expand the section. Give it a try!

AOL.com will remember the expand or collapse state that you leave each module in for each visit so that it will be the same each time you come to the page. If you happen to reset your cookies at some point, these settings will be lost and you will need to tweak your page again. Click here for more info on how we store your settings.

Thanks so much for taking the time to check out our latest feature. We truly value your feedback, so please keep it coming!
The AOL Homepages Team

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Personalize Your Page With Pink

Tracy Highnote — 2009-03-12T11:44:00+00:00

Do you love pink? We've had many requests over the last few months to add a pink theme to the home page.
So by popular demand, we've debuted a pink theme on our selection strip!

Here's what to look for in the upper right corner of AOL.com:

Here's a preview of what the pink theme looks like:

You can also click here to set this theme now.

We'd love to know what you think about Pink, and do let us know what other themes or color choices you'd like to see added!
The AOL Homepages Team

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Scared of Change? "Classic" AOL.com Theme is now Available!

Sanjay Nayar — 2009-01-14T11:25:00+00:00

We know change is tough and have heard some feedback from many of you that while you like the new features on the redesigned AOL.com Homepage, you don't love the choices for the color schemes. Many of you in fact wanted to keep the Ecru (yes its a fancy word for tan...) color that our page used to be.

So you asked and we responded. You will now find that you have a new "Classic" Theme added to your choices in the upper right hand of the page.

Just like the other themes, you can click through and check out the different look and feel of the page that each Theme brings and keep the one you like best! We will be very shortly adding in many more options for page themes - from subtle choices to wild color options - so we'll be sure to let you know when those are available.

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Accessing Your AOL Favorite Places

Sanjay Nayar — 2008-12-11T16:30:00+00:00

Hey everyone,

We got a lot of feedback from you all about the the ability to access your AOL Favorites (). We know many of you spent a lot of time to add those favorites and we can completely understand not wanting to have to re-enter everything again.

So we listened to the feedback and added in a link in the My Links area of the page (upper left hand corner) that will let you access your favorites.

Please note that if you have added your own links to the My Links section (and we hope you have!!), you will not see the new "AOL Favorites" link. This will only show up if you have not customized at all. For those who already have customized, we felt it was a little intrusive to add a new link to your personalized list without your request. So for those who do not see a link, you can access the Favorites page directly from this link

By clicking on the AOL Favorites link, you will be taken to the myAOL Favorites page where you can easily manage all of your links. If you are already signed in, you should see the favorites that you may have already created if you used myAOL previously.

The great thing for all you AOL users is that you can also import all the favorites that you have gathered using the AOL software. Simply click on the Import Bookmarks link at the bottom of the page and you will be prompted to import either your AOL Software Favorite Places or import from your browser. Just follow the simple directions and you should have them all right there for you to use!

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Not seeing the right AOL home page?

Tracy Highnote — 2008-11-24T18:02:00+00:00

On Friday, Nov. 21, we received reports that some users were being routed to an incorrect AOL.com home page. If you experienced this problem and still see the incorrect page, there's an easy way for you to get your regular AOL.com page back. Simply click on this link (or type http://www.aol.com/?nocobrand=1 into your browser) to get your regular page back.

Let us know if this doesn't fix the problem and we'll be happy to follow up with you. You can leave us feedback here on the AOL Homepage Blog or by filling out our feedback form.

We apologize for any confusion. Thanks for using AOL.com!

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Protecting your Personalization Choices

Sanjay Nayar — 2008-11-05T17:21:00+00:00

Filed under: The New AOL.com Features

Hopefully you've had a chance to try out some of the new features that let you personalize your home page. We wanted to let you how we store those preferences, so you can prevent the changes you've made to your home page from being lost. Any time you make changes to your home page, like adding sites to My Links, feeds to the RSS reader or choosing a theme, we store those preferences in a secure "cookie" on your computer. Basically, the cookie allows us to remember the changes you've made and deliver your home page to you the way that you want each time you go to AOL.com. We use cookies on AOL.com so that you are not required to login to the AOL network or even have an AOL screen name to be able to still use and save our personalization features.

We've received feedback from some you that the changes you've made have disappeared or didn't stick, and we understand how frustrating that would be since you invested the time to personalize.

What's happening in these circumstances is that your "cookies" are being deleted. Again, we use cookies to store your individual choices or preferences, so when that cookie is deleted the changes you've made to your home page get cleared away

However, there are ways that you can protect your cookies or private data. Sometimes your browser default settings might not allow cookies or could be set to delete your cookies every time you close it. But you can easily change your browser settings. Here's some information to help you check and update your browser settings.

Internet Explorer

To check your browser settings click click the "Alt" key and "T" keys simultaneously and your "Tools" menu should drop down from the top of your browser window automatically.

Then select "Internet Options" from the menu and then the "Privacy" tab.

If your settings are listed as Medium/High or higher, you may need to manually add AOL.com as a site from which you will allow cookies to save your settings. To add AOL.com, just click on the "Sites" button and then type www.aol.com in the input field then click "Allow". That's it.

If your Privacy settings are Medium or lower, you should not have to worry about losing your choices unless you manually choose to delete

Firefox

To check your browser settings click the "Alt" and "T" keys simultaneously and your "Tools" menu should drop down from the top of your browser window. Select "Options" from the menu and then select the "Privacy tab. ". Make sure that the checkboxes in the Cookies section are checked and that "Keep Until" is set as "until they expire".

Safari

For you Safari users, you can find similar setting by clicking Alt-E and then click on the "Security" tab. Make sure that the Accept Cookies setting is set to Always or Only from sites you navigate to (make sure its not set as Never).

If you are feeling very tech savvy, and you do want to delete cookies, you can go in and save the cookie named "uauserid". I'll spare you the details on how to do this as I have a feeling anyone who wants to venture down this path likely knows their way around pretty well already. If you do need help, please do drop us a comment here and we'll be sure to respond.

We are working on a solution that will let you bind your home page preferences to your AOL or potentially other external accounts, which we hope to release later this year. The benefit of this feature is that you can sign in to any computer at any time and have your home page reflect your preferences.

So, hopefully this information has helped. But if you still have issues or questions, there are some additional FAQs here or feel free to post of comment or send us feedback and we'll be sure to respond.

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Personalizing your Page - FAQ

Sanjay Nayar — 2008-11-05T17:20:00+00:00

Q: How are my home page preferences stored?
A: When you make changes to your page, your choices are stored as a "cookie" on the computer that you are using. Cookies store information you enter on a Web page, such as preferences or login information, to save you time later. They are very small files, and are designed to make a Web page more convenient to use so that you don't have to keep re-entering the same information. We use cookies on AOL.com so that you are not required to login or even have an AOL screen name to be able to still use and save our personalization features.

For more information on cookies, please visit this AOL Help link:

Q: What can I customize on the new AOL.com home page?
A: One of the great new things about the new AOL.com is that the are lots of ways to customize the page to both make it look the way you want it to look and give you the information that is most important and useful to you. Throughout the page, there are ways to customize but here are a few key areas:

Themes: Users can customize the colors and background of the new page. There are 6 themes to choose from with more to come.

My Links: Users can now add any links they want to the page so that they can access their most frequently visited sites more easily.

Directory: Users now have the ability to reorder the AOL Directory by dragging and dropping items to be able to put the links in whatever order best meets their needs.

My Stuff: Users can choose which 4 panels are present when the page first loads each time the browser opens. Additionally, for the AOL, Yahoo, and Gmail Panels, users can setup accounts to be able to login and preview their emails.

My Networks: Users can set up logins for any or all of the social networking sites including AIM, Bebo, Facebook, MySpace and Twitter. Depening on the social network, there are also different ways to view the content (list vs thumbnail) that users are able to customize.

My Local: Users can enter and store up to 5 different locations to get weather, real-time news, gas prices, and lottery information from. Additionally, users can customize the local experience by minimizing individual sections (for example hiding just the lottery section)

RSS Feed Browser: Users can add individual RSS feeds and categories to the page to be able to see content from their favorite external sites.

Q: Why did all of the changes I made to my home page disappear?
A: If you make changes as described above and then come back to the page to find that none of those changes are there, what might be happening is that your "cookies" have being deleted. As noted in an earlier question, cookies are the way that your individual choices are managed. So if your cookies are deleted or if your settings are such that you don't allow cookies to be saved, then your customization choices will also not be able to be saved for the next time you visit the page.

Q: How can I prevent the changes I make to my home page from being lost?
A: Sometimes the deletion of cookies can be manual and other times it can be from a setting on your Internet browser that either deletes them or doesn't allow them to be saved in the first place. Below are some steps to check your browser to make sure its set up to save your choices.

Internet Explorer

To check your browser settings click click the "Alt" key and "T" keys simultaneously and your "Tools" menu should drop down from the top of your browser window automatically.

Then select "Internet Options" from the menu and then the "Privacy" tab.

If your Privacy settings are Medium or lower, you should not have to worry about losing your choices unless you manually choose to delete

Firefox

Safari

Q: Why don't I see the changes I've made to my home page on other machines?
A: Being that cookies are only saved on the computer that is being used, your personalization options will only be on that specific computer. If you use a different computer, even if you sign-on to the AOL network, you will not get the customization that you previously set.

Being able to make your choices portable is a feature that we see lots of value in and we have our developers working on to build a solution that will let you bind your home page preferences to your AOL or potentially other external accounts, which we hope to release later this year. The benefit of this feature will be that you can sign in to any computer at any time and have your home page reflect your preferences

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Introducing The New AOL.com

Marian M. Rosaaen — 2008-10-29T21:03:00+00:00

Filed under: The New AOL.com Features

You may have noticed that we've made some major changes to the home page. And if you haven't, we're in the process of rolling them out to everyone in the coming weeks. So change is coming soon.

We've spent several months working hard to design an experience that makes it easy for you to access the things YOU care about most - right from your AOL.com home page. So, we are opening our site to include features you've told us are important to you -- whether it's access to different email accounts or your favorite Web sites. You're stuff is as important as our (AOL) stuff.

A little over a month ago we introduced Gmail and Yahoo! mail previews to the AOL.com home page. We received a lot of positive feedback from you when we introduced the feature so we knew we were on to something.

Today, we are pleased to introduce more features that, we hope, will save you time and make your online routine a little easier and more relevant. You'll now find access to some of your favorite Social Networks, an RSS Feed Browser that lets you read news from other Web sites, customizable navigation, enhanced Local information featuring real-time news and some fun new themes -- all available right on your AOL.com home page.

We want to thank you for your feedback. It helped us build the site you see today. We'd like to keep the conversation going and continue listening to what you like, don't like and really wish you could have on your homepage. So please leave comments on the blog or send us feedback.

We hope enjoy the new AOL.com home page. And if you want to learn more about the new features, click on the links below. Or, sit back, relax and watch the Page Tour. Enjoy!

My Stuff - your mini-dashboard with mail preview and more

Themes - choose your homepage design

Mail Preview - preview your mail from Yahoo!, Gmail and AOL

My Networks - your social networks in one place

My Links - customizable navigation

My Local - weather, real-time news and more

RSS Feed Browser - news and updates from other Web sites

PS: We understand that change is not always easy so, if you love the look and feel of the "classic" AOL.com home page, you can choose to go back by clicking the "Back to Classic" link located at the top of the page next to the Theme chooser.

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Coming Soon: The New AOL.com

Marian M. Rosaaen — 2008-10-21T14:42:00+00:00

Filed under: The New AOL.com Features

We're nearing the "finish line" with a new home page design and a set of features that will put you more in control of your online experience.

About a month ago, we introduced the ability for you to preview your e-mail accounts from other providers like Yahoo and Gmail without having to leave your home page. Like you, we have multiple email accounts too and knew it would make your lives easier to be able to check them all from one place (the AOL Homepage, naturally). Your feedback on that recent addition has been overwhelmingly positive; Thank You!

We also know that many of you use multiple Social Networks (so do we!) so one the most useful of the "Coming Soon" features is the ability to preview updates from the Social Networks you use most (AIM, MySpace, Twitter, Facebook, and more coming soon), much like the Mail Preview we added last month. We love this feature and we know you will too because it provides a quick and easy of staying on top of all your updates in one place.

Additionally, you can customize your navigation by adding links to any sites you want and even re-order them. We're giving you a set of customizable themes so you can decide how you want your page to look, and an RSS reader so you can read news and updates from any other sites you choose. We're even updating our local section to feature news, weather, gas prices, and lottery results from your area.

Getting excited yet?

Enjoy a sneak peek of the new AOL.com right now!

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Frequently Asked Questions - Email Preview

Sanjay Nayar — 2008-09-09T22:40:00+00:00

Q: What is this new feature?
A: AOL is now providing the ability to get a preview of other email provider email messages just as you have been able to do for AOL. Right from AOL.com, you can access your email accounts from AOL, Yahoo, Gmail and Hotmail. You will see the panels expand and provide the step by step process to access your email.

Q: Why would AOL want to give us access to Yahoo and other external email sites? Is this some sort of trick?
A: Not at all. We've been listening to our customers and understand that people often have more than one email address. We want to provide a homepage that is useful in getting you what you need, and access to other email is one feature that is frequently requested.

Q: I used to have other stuff in this area that I liked. How do I get it back?
A: In order to showcase this new feature, we are displaying the Yahoo mail and Gmail Preview Panels to our users as the default. However, if this is feature is of no interest to you, you can change your options by clicking on the small arrow in the upper right corner of the Panel. From there you will see a number of other options that you can choose from. Once you make your choice, your computer will remember it each time you return. And you can always change your choices any time or as often as you would like.

Q: I can get Yahoo and Gmail, but why can't I access my Hotmail the same way?
A: We'd love to give you access to Hotmail as well, but unfortunately, Microsoft doesn't currently provide this preview functionality. But we are working with them closely so if and when they do offer it, we will integrate it. In the meantime, we have provided a button that will link you out to Hotmail to make it easier for you to get there. Feel free to send feedback to Microsoft, letting them know you'd like to be able to do this on AOL. https://feedback.live.com/default.aspx?mkt=en-us&productkey=wlmail&scrx=1

Q: Can I delete messages from the Preview Panel?
A: No, the preview panel only allows for a preview of the message. When you click on it, you will be taken to the actual message on the provider's service where you will be able to reply, forward, or delete just as you normally would.

Q: If I set-up Yahoo or Gmail, does that mean I wont be able to get a preview of my AOL mail any more?
A: No it doesn't. You can set up accounts with all three in three different Panels and will be able to easily get previews of all your emails.

Q: Is AOL capturing and storing my password and login information?
A: No we are not. Any login information is encrypted and is not used for any other purpose than logging you into your email.

Q: Do I have to sign in to AOL to use this feature?
A: No you don't. You can set-up your other emails without having to sign in to AOL.

Q: I don't have an AOL email addresses, can I remove that mail preview?
A: Yes! If you don't have an AOL email address (or Yahoo or Gmail for that matter) you can use the dropdown in the upper corner to find something that is more useful to you. Of course you can always signup for a free AOL email account at http://mail.aol.com, or a new Tunome account (http://www.tunome.com) to get a free personalized email address

Q: I have more than one email address with a certain provider? Can I set up two different panels for each?
A: At this time, you can only check a single AOL, Yahoo, or Gmail account at a time, but were looking into adding the ability to check multiple email accounts. You can always re-sign in with a new username if you want to switch accounts.

Q: I have another non-AOL email that's not Yahoo, Gmail, or Hotmail. Is there a way I can access that too?
A: You are currently limited to these choices but if there's one you'd really like to see please leave us a comment with your feedback.

Q: I'm getting an error that you are temporarily unable to retrieve my mail. What does this mean?
A: Sometimes there is a technical issue and something breaks that prevents us from getting you the information you are looking for. Your best bet is to wait for a minute or two and then try again. You will have a link at the bottom of the panel link off directly to your mailbox if you get tired of waiting. Of course if you find you are consistently having problems after waiting and trying multiple times, let us know!

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Replacing Email Previews with Other Options

Sanjay Nayar — 2008-09-09T22:35:00+00:00

These enhancements to AOL.com are designed to give you options - not force you to change - so if you don't have multiple email addresses or don't think the feature is something you'll use often, no worries. You're not stuck with it. You can very easily change the pre-selected Preview Panel choices - those buttons currently displaying AOL, Yahoo, Gmail and Weather -- by clicking on the small triangle in upper right corner of each panel.

There are many, many other options available including eBay, Finance, Health, Movies, Music, and TMZ to name just a few. If you still haven't found what you're looking for, let us know what you would like to see!

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Yahoo, GMail and Hotmail on AOL.com??!!

Sanjay Nayar — 2008-09-09T22:31:00+00:00

We realize that AOL.com is not the only web site that you use and that you may, like many of us, have multiple email accounts with different providers. We received a lot of positive feedback from many of you on the AOL Mail Preview and the convenience of that experience. But to make us even more useful, we need to embrace reality that you visit other sites and become more of a launch pad to your other online experiences. With that in mind, we wanted to give you the ability to preview your e-mail from other providers like Gmail and Yahoo! directly on AOL.com. Why shouldn't you be able to preview all your e-mail accounts in one place?! And this is just the beginning - there are even more new features just around the corner that will let you access your news, your social networks and more all right from AOL.com!!

We're really excited about this new feature and we hope you are too. These enhancements to AOL.com are designed to give you options - not force you to change - so if you don't have multiple email addresses or don't think the feature is something you'll use often, no worries. You're not stuck with it. You can very easily change the pre-selected Preview Panel choices (those buttons that may be currently displaying AOL, Yahoo, Gmail and Weather) by clicking on the small triangle in upper right corner of each panel.

Still with us?

Let's move onto how this new mail feature works.

In addition to being able to preview your AOL Mail, there are three email providers we've added to AOL.com: Yahoo!, GMail, and Hotmail. For each mail provider, when you mouse-over the Preview Panel, you'll find step by step instructions to guide you through the set-up process.

Each one is a little bit different so, here's a quick walkthrough.

Yahoo

To add a Yahoo account to your mail preview, simply place your mouse over the Y! icon. The panel will expand and you'll find a button prompting you to sign-in.

Once you click this button, you will go to a Yahoo! sign-in screen where you can enter your current Yahoo! username and password. Yahoo! will display their Terms of Service - essentially confirming that you are who you say you are and that Yahoo! can deliver emails to the AOL.com Yahoo! Preview Panel -- pretty standard stuff. After clicking "I Agree", AOL.com will then display with your new mail displayed in the Yahoo Panel. And you will continue to get your Yahoo! Mail preview on subsequent visits to AOL.com until you log out.

GMail

To add a GMail account to your mail preview, simply mouse-over the GMail icon. The panel will expand and you will see entry fields for username and password to sign-in.

For GMail, once you input your current GMail username and password and click sign-in, you will immediately see all of your unread email. Like with Yahoo, if you choose to "Remember me on this computer", you will get your GMail preview on subsequent visits to AOL.com until you log out.

Hotmail

We'd love to give you access to Hotmail also but unfortunately, Microsoft does not provide us the ability for you to access your account via AOL.com. Because of this, we've kept Hotmail as one of the other options that you can choose rather than preselecting it as one of the default choices on your screen - so if you want to access the Hotmail preview panel, you'll have to swap it out with one of the ones already there by clicking on the arrow in the corner. Keeping that in mind, we've done what we can for our Hotmail users and provided a link to Hotmail. Hopefully that will make it a little easier to access your account from AOL.com. If interested, feel free to send Microsoft some feedback to let them know you'd like to be able to do this on AOL. https://feedback.live.com/default.aspx?mkt=en-us&productkey=wlmail&scrx=1

So there it is -- a quick overview of our new mail feature. By being able to quickly glance at new emails you have for all of your accounts, we're hoping you'll save time by not having to navigate to multiple websites and sign-in over and over, and over again.

If you more questions, you can also check this blog post for some Frequently Asked Questions. If you have a question that we still haven't answered, leave us a comment and we'll be sure to respond.

So, whaddya think? We want to hear from you!

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Looking for previously run news stories?

Sanjay Nayar — 2008-04-22T12:00:00+00:00

One piece of feedback that we often receive is that its hard to find a story that you saw previously or had read earlier in the day or week and that is now not running on the site. So to address that, there is a new AOL News page called The Rewind where you will be able to see all the stories that had been previously running. You are also able to search for any Headline article that has run on our AOL.com. You can even directly subscribe to The Rewind Feed so you'll never miss a story again.

To make things easier on AOL.com, we also provide links at the bottom of each panel to some of the more popular earlier stories that you will now be able to still access on The Rewind.

Hope you find it useful!

Sanjay

Product Manager

www.AOL.com

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