100 Objects #22: AOL Disc
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100 Objects #22: AOL Disc

B2Upper-intermediateOctober 30, 202634 min
  • Technology

In 1998, the recording industry was thriving. But the company pressing more compact discs than anyone else in America wasn't a record label…it was an internet company: America Online. The AOL Disc was a marketing coup—hugely successful. It’s not an overstatement to say that it’s the campaign that introduced America to the internet. Because of how well it worked, for a while the internet was AOL. And then… it felt like AOL just disappeared. So what happened? Alex Goldman (Reply All, Hyperfixed) finds out. A History of the United States in 100 Objects is a production...

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everything. But in these halcyon days, two years before the millennium, things never looked better.

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B2 · Upper-intermediate

Comfortable if you already follow TV news

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  • 150 harder words (B2 and up) in the whole episode.

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0:00

In 1998, the recording industry was thriving. This was a year before Napster came out and ruined everything. But in these halcyon days, two years before the millennium, things never looked better. The music industry was putting up record numbers and selling an unprecedented number of CDs. Brandy, Shania Twain, and Savage Garden topped the charts. And thanks to Slean Dion's

0:26

my heart will go on, the Titanic soundtrack spent 16 weeks at number one and sold 9 million copies in 1998 alone. But the company pressing more compact discs than anyone else in America wasn't a record label. It was an internet company. America Online. And according to its chief marketing officer, at one point, half of all CDs produced on

0:56

Earth were AOL discs. But the AOL CD didn't play music. It wouldn't even work in your Discman. It was instead a marketing ploy.

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