As a subscriber to Earthlink’s Dial-up internet access I always saw them as very old and stuffy. Don’t get me wrong as far as the different dial-up ISPs I’ve had they’re the best yet, but that weren’t cool. Since then they have very quietly but quickly become just that. They have a great blog, they were one of the first big name podcast advertisers, and now they have their own Web 2.0 service!
The first is an online feed reader much like Bloglines or FeedLounge. Simply called Reader it has the the requisite AJAX goodness and allows for the import and export of OPML files. It doesn’t have tagging or other social features yet but from the sound of the blog post this product is still in the early stages of life.
The second is an online social bookmarking service much like del.icio.us or Shadows(more on that here). It’s very simple and like the others allows users to tag websites and it has a browser plugin similiar to the one I use for del.icio.us.
So what does all of this mean? I think it’s Earthlink coming to the realization that much like AOL their future is not as an ISP but has a portal and these recent steps really help move them in that direction.
