From...

June 30, 1999
Web posted at: 12:39 p.m. EDT (1639 GMT)

by Nancy Weil

(IDG) -- A revamped Welcome screen and a range of new features are in the offing for America Online subscribers, who will receive the Internet service provider's AOL 5.0 client software before the end of the year, the company announced Tuesday.

Beta tests of the software will begin within the next few weeks, with AOL 5.0 available to the company's 17-million-plus general membership in coming months. The new welcome screen will provide access to e-mail, the AOL Channel Guide, news headlines, sports, and weather.

The company's signature "You've Got Mail" audio message, sounded when a subscriber has e-mail, will be augmented with a "You've Got Pictures" announcement when online photographs are sent to a member. Tests of that feature started on Monday in Cleveland, Orlando, and Tampa.

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E-mail features apparently will figure prominently in AOL 5.0. It will allow subscribers to retrieve deleted e-mail for up to 24 hours, save and transfer data from address books and "favorite places" to another computer, open downloaded e-mail files more easily, and sign e-mail with a signature file.

Other new features include compatibility with the Palm Computing platform and an interactive calendar.

Additionally, a new search engine will let users search both the Internet and AOL proprietary content without leaving AOL. Results will appear in three tabs--one for AOL content, one for Web material, and one for resources (such as books) that may not be on the Web.

AOL 5.0 will support available broadband services and will offer video, enhanced online shopping, radio, and games to those who use speedier connectivity options, said AOL.

You've got time

While AOL is emphasizing support for broadband and multimedia, analyst Jill Frankle of International Data Corp. wonders how widely used those aspects of AOL 5.0 will be, particularly given that broadband service has yet to fully take hold.

"I'm not quite sure how much of an impact that's going to have initially in terms of how many people will use those services," she said.

Overall, this looks like an incremental upgrade, Frankle added. "I don't really see it as a major, major announcement," she said.