Customer Reviews

AOL BY GEORGE!: The Inside Story of America Online

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I was looking forward to reading this book because I remember the very early days of AOL, and I thought some insider's perspectives from that era would be fascinating. And they probably would be, if this guy would stop rambling, pontificating, and congratulating himself long enough to make a coherent point. This is barely even a book--it's like a parody of bad, pointless writing. (It has several introductions--that should have been a big red warning sign.)

Intending to tell the story of "AOL Community" in the old days through his own experiences, former AOL Forum Leader George ends up repeating it in this cranky, disconnected, and occasionally psychotic rant. It's true that the earlier years in AOL forums and chat were an interesting time, and there are many good stories that could be told. This book is more of a glimpse into the strange and twisted world of "remote staff" and forum volunteers. George slides into pipe-in-mouth storytelling about his own life too much, and even includes recipes. Recommended for the student of abnormal psychology only.

AOL BY GEORGE! is an intriguing story that I couldn't put down. It's quite different from what I'm used to reading about AOL; it's certainly not a computer book.

In the early days of AOL, George Thornally was a forum leader, conducting online discussion groups among wide and diverse people whose ages, identities, and background were curiously disguised and anonymous in this new type of communications medium. And with perhaps unintended irony, the author uses this earlier medium--print--to weave in the stories of communication and technology leaders from previous times as prologue for even more changes to come. This generates a richness to his story that surpasses the singular importance of new communications media because we see its role in a historical context.

Unlike other corporate books that offer an insider's look at the rise and fall of power, with self-serving praise towards the founders, here we have an intimate look at the people who really created AOL. The author bares his thoughts as he weathered the ups and downs inside AOL, while describing the vicissitudes of information entreprenuring, and offering musings about the future. It's the fascinating tales of his anonymous forum members that I found most compelling. For example, there's the wise "old" philosopher-genius who turned out to be a young boy, the lovely Dawn surrounded in mystery, and Charlie's life course crisis.

As the new century approaches, we can expect changes in communications as profound as those of the last hundred years. Will virtual organizations overtake the geopolitical unions that have defined the ability to disseminate information in the past? Will an alternative culture develop online due to a lack of trust in the conventional sources of authority?

The author speculates, "From associations such as these, relationships can flourish and, under the right circumstances, community can formulate and be sustained. If people so connected become charged up, a great force for change can be unleashed."

Cultural memory gets lost so fast in this age of marketing and news hype. A cyber community created less than 15 years ago seems to the current cyber generation to be as ancient as raising the flag on Signal Hill in San Francisco during the Gold Rush Days. Impatient "new generation" people, only focused on the now and the future, discard any respect for what may be learned from the pioneers of the past. This book reveals the very human side of how AOL was started. It took unique people with an inate understanding of what actions, attitudes and obligations are inherent to being a part of a community. While the style is to recount stories from the point of view of the author who was an infulencial founding pioneer, each story tells much more about where he and where we come from that ultimately lead to the "now" of early AOL. In retrospect, and in light of the currently faddish "My Space", one wonders why AOL so mistakenly wandered away from the community foundaton. All it needed was to keep up with the technolgy and expand on the concept. Those currently running AOL would do well to go back and read this book. Those who have never given much thought to how a cultural phenomenon started, will be bemused by how it all began.

Thank you, George, for giving us a living reminder of what AOL's community used to be about ... I use your vision of what it was to contrast with what it has become since AOL passed on the opportunity to reward you and your teams for building a world-class company. Check out Chapter 13 of In Search Of America Online (www.insearchofaol.com) ... you're still our hero!

Sean

This book gives a human face to AOL, now an 800 pound gorilla. Mr Thornally reminds us that the real nature of the computer is a person to person technology, not just a hub of commerce. I enjoyed hearing about the bare bones beginning of AOL. It's fun to know about the human currency behind AOL, and how they kept score in the "ancient" 1980s.

Wow! What a book. Mr. Thornally is a modern day Dante taking us through an electro-corporate Purgitory. This was a lyrical book that caught me by surprise; not what I expected. A definite "good read".

AOL BY George is essentially a chronicle--a reflection--of a particular time in the history of ur culture when it seemed that the electronic age could humanize us by providing the means for us to communicate with people we did not know and could not see; strangers, actually, with whom we could share our joy and pain, our laugher, our ideas; people who could change our lives. It is a book about hope, success, failure, friendship, loneliness, change, disappointment, optimism and joy. It's basically a chronicle about the journey of one man who knows that no man is an island.

I didn't like this book at all. I was expecting to hear about how AOL became what it is today. Instead I read a lot of boring little stories that didn't have anything to do with AOL. George was only the forum leader at AOL. And that is all the info that you will find on AOL. Just about forums and chat rooms. And there isn't a whole lot that kept my interest. If you are looking for learn about AOL and find out how they became what they are today, then this is not the book. And if you don't want it for that, well, I didn't find it all that interesting.

Loved the book but did not want it to end. First cried, then laughed, and could not put it down until nearing the end. Did not want to part with what felt like being a part of a personal diary. Thank you, George, for sharing with us part of your life and AOL's beginnings. Until another By George comes along I will continue to re-read the first.