New AOL Homepage Gets More Social

Hoping to attract more users into its fold and hereby getting more homepage traffic, AOL has just redesigned its homepage which gives users instant access to various social networks right on the AOL site. According to AOL, this is the first time that a major internet portal is providing access to major social networking sites. If you would recall, AOL has just recently provided access to multiple email services on the AOL site. Getting social networking feeds is the next step that AOL is taking to rejuvenate its portal.The new AOL site’s social networking features will let you post status updates to you social networks without leaving the AOL portal. Tapping thickly populated networking sites such as AIM, Bebo, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter and other third-party site, the new AOL social networking features allow you to provide profile activity information, friend request, status updates and mail notifications.

In addition to this, AOL has also launched several new tools and features aimed at personalizing user experience and bringing consumers more control over how content and services will be displayed. You can customize the main navigation bar, receive continously updated local news, and access RSS feeds from the web into your AOL portal.

The new AOL homepage will be gradually rolled-out unless you opt to get it as early as now.

If this new homepage becomes quite as good if not better than the current top web portal destination, we expect to hear something new from other major companies in the coming months.

Join Baratunde Thurston (left), The Onion’s Director of Digital and author of How to Be Black, for an entertaining look at creative social media campaigns in our Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting February 16. Other speakers include Morin Oluwole (Facebook), Tim Devane (bitly), and SocialTimes' writer Devon Glenn.   Register now.