There are many ways to tell the story of AOL and its numerous reinventions, so here’s just one: The New York Times Crossword. With just a few letters, most of which are vowels, AOL is a common crutch of cruciverbalists. (See also: APE, EPEE, and BRIO.)
There are many ways to tell the story of AOL and its numerous reinventions, so here’s just one: The New York Times Crossword. With just a few letters, most of which are vowels, AOL is a common crutch of cruciverbalists. (See also: APE, EPEE, and BRIO.)
Below, I’ve compiled nearly every appearance of AOL in the Times crossword from 1997 to 2011, taking the company on a journey from “Prodigy competitor” (Jan. 14, 1997) to “Netcom competitor” (Mar. 29, 1998) to ”Juno rival” (Apr. 6, 2003) to “Gmail alternative” (June 5, 2007) to “Yahoo! competitor” (May 10, 2010)—oh, and finally, “Huffington Post buyer” (Apr. 17, 2011) and ”Company with Patch Media” (Oct. 9, 2011). There are many other gems in between.
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The data were compiled from an app for searching Times crossword clues, which was built by Quartz product engineering director Michael Donohoe.
Jan. 14, 1997: Prodigy competitor, for short
Mar. 29, 1998: Netcom competitor
Apr. 11, 1999: “You’ve got mail” co.
Apr. 13, 2000: Big letters in cyberspace
Jan. 16, 2001: Part of many e-mail addresses
Feb. 2, 2002: Earthlink competitor
Jan. 18, 2003: Trio after @, perhaps
Mar. 22, 2004: Co. that merged with Time Warner
Jan. 4, 2005: ”You’ve got mail” co.
Feb. 7, 2007: Popular I.S.P.
Jan. 31, 2008: Co. with a triangular logo
Feb. 8, 2009: Co. with a triangular logo
Feb. 13, 2010: Co. split off from Time Warner in 2009
Jan. 2, 2011: Instant messaging pioneer
Here’s a Google $GOOGL spreadsheet with all of the raw data, including the day of the week that each clue ran, so you can see how difficult it was intended to be. (Clues in the Times crossword get progressively harder from Monday to Saturday.)
