‘Project Phoenix’ Revealed by AOL

AOL unveiled the preview of the new AOL.com today, code named “Project Phoenix”, right after the rumors about Facebook’s email service becomes one of the most talked about tech subject in recent news.  Great timing, huh?

AOL’s email service is a vital part of their business.  It represents 45% of the companies page views currently, and with Project Phoenix, it’s going to attempt to hold more of their company’s page views.

Email remains one of the most vital communication tools despite all of the new sites and apps available to consumers today,” said Brad Garlinghouse. “There is still so much innovation to be done in the space and Project Phoenix is just the beginning. We see a huge opportunity to disrupt email in a big way. AOL is the company that brought everyone online, and now we’re making it simpler and more enjoyable to be there.

Project Phoenix is attempting to appeal to consumers with a fresh interface, with a better design.

AOL is also adding new features to make AOL’s service an all-in-one site for social networking, with its new Quick Bar.  The other new feature is Smart View, which displays important information on the right side, such as conversation threads (my favorite), attachments, and maps.  You can also send emails from other services with Email aggregation.  Email aggregation makes it easier to use other company’s email services, such as GMail, Hotmail, and Yahoo! Mail.

Even with the upcoming update, would you even think about switching back to AOL Mail?  Could you leave a service like GMail which integrates all of the things you need to use on a daily basis within one click?