OpenRide and open container laws
If America Online is going to matter as a free service, it's going to have to come up with some compelling features, and the debut of OpenRide is a bold step in the right direction. The software application is ambitious. It aims to be a jack-of-all-trades, allowing users to browse the Internet, check email, chat, search, and scour for media files, using several dynamically resized panes on the same page.
Is it perfect? No. If you're not the multitasking type, the application may seem pointlessly cluttered. Some of the seemingly revolutionary features, like tabbed browser windows on the same page, are pretty commonplace, even appearing in the latest version of Microsoft's
However, you can't blame AOL for trying. Time Warner's
Good luck with that, AOL. No panes, no gain.
Mailing it in
It's not just AOL that is stirring the kettle of change. Yahoo!
I bit the bait and switched to the beta version of Yahoo!; my impressions are mixed. It is clearly trying to channel Google's
Until next week, I remain,
Rick Munarriz
Time Warner and Yahoo! are Motley Fool Stock Advisor recommendations. Microsoft is an Inside Value selection.
Longtime Fool contributor Rick Munarriz recommends windshield wiper fluid when trying to look back. Rick is part of the Rule Breakers newsletter research team, seeking out tomorrow's ultimate growth stocks a day early. He does own not own shares in any of the companies in this story. The Fool has a disclosure policy.