AOL isn’t exactly on the top of my list when it comes to my favorite companies, and they haven’t been ever since I was forced to use them as a dial-up Internet service provider several years ago. That’s probably a story in itself though.
Now AOL has launched a new Beta homepage where they have nearly no innovative design work. In fact, it so closely resembles Yahoo’s newly redesigned homepage that it is sure to make you do a double-take (comparison pictured above). It almost looks as though the developers over at AOL started with Yahoo’s site as a template, and then just changed a few buttons and links.
Pictured to the right you’ll also see a side-by-side comparison of the navigation links from both the AOL Beta site and Yahoo’s site. Over half of the entries are the same in both navigation bars! Heck, even some of the icons look the same such as the popcorn next to the “Movies”.
AOL has not been getting any good publicity lately, and it doesn’t look like it is going to be starting anytime soon. Maybe one of these days they will hire someone that will be able to help their reputation rather than hurt it.
Or another way to look at this is as confirmation that AOL and Yahoo! will be merging this year? After all, they would want the sites to look the same if they were going to merge, right? 
Source: Webware
Wow, I remember when Yahoo! made their new homepage; many were calling it a copy of AOL’s. That was a stretch, but now the tables have turned and I agree this is practically carbon copy. I wonder if there’ll be any withdrawal like when Google took Yahoo!’s IE7 page then later repealed it?
Maybe you’re onto something with that potential merge.
I guess it is still in Beta though so they can really do whatever they want without digging themselves into too big of a whole. I’m sure the final product isn’t going to look like that though, otherwise they will definitely be given some unkind glares from their competitors.
AOL and Yahoo! should merge already, geez!!!
>AIM is great…Yahoo! Messenger could be better.
>AOL Radio and Yahoo! Music are both good and can only help to improve each other.
>AOL/AIM Mail and Yahoo! Mail are also both good and can also only help to improve each other.
>AOL’s homepage sucks (even though it’s basically a copy of Yahoo!’s)…and the merged company can just use Yahoo’s page, since no one seems to like AOL anymore anyway, right?
>Yahoo! Briefcase is a great idea but could be alot better with a space of 5GB like AOL’s X-Drive.
So yeah, just merge already you two.