Looking to overcome a reported 2.2 million members walking away from their service, America Online will start selling inexpensive personal computers to low-income and minority households signing up for a year of AOL's dialup Internet service, the ISP announced Aug. 12.
AOL said it wants to draw the estimated 27 percent of senior citizen, African-American, and Hispanic households who don't yet own personal computers. The machines AOL plans to sell will come, according to published reports, with simple desktops and large icons sending users to specific AOL areas or other applications loaded on the computers.
The machines will be sold through Office Depot.
AOL has already introduced other programs tailored to minority communities, launching AOL Latino in October 2003 and preparing Blackvoices for African Americans in September. AOL Latino already has 2 million members, and is estimated as the largest Internet service provider in the U.S. Spanish-speaking community.
