AOL will continue planting seeds beyond its formerly walled garden by offering a free voice-over-Internet
phone service called AIM Phoneline. The service will be an extension of its popular instant messaging service
and will provide users with a local phone number and the ability to receive incoming phone calls from anywhere.
AOL will also offer an enhanced subscription version for $14.95/month which will allow subscribers to make local
and long distance calls from their computers.
AIM (along with the other major portals) already sports talk features but Phoneline will be a more robust version which will compete with eBay's Skype as well as traditional telephone services. In addition, AIM Phoneline will be a part of a broader strategy to leverage AOL instant messaging that will include a social networking channel as well (stay tuned for more details on that one as they arise).
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