AOL's "Want a better Internet?" campaign
As everyone not living under a rock realizes by now, AOL’s latest ad campaign shows the media conglomerate taking suggestions from its members to improve the Internet.
In light of this ad, I have a suggestion: AOL users should learn how the Internet actually works. Before one can suggest viable improvements to a system, one must understand how it works. Given that the Internet is the product of some of the finest minds of the past third of a century, this is no small task. At a minimum, the following items should be understood:
the 7-layer OSI modelTCP/IP, FTP, HTTP, POP, and SMTP
HTML, JavaScript, and Java
modems, routers, and firewalls
viruses, worms, Trojan horses, and spyware
browser plug-ins (PDF, SWF, MPEG, etc.)
Without this knowledge, AOL users don’t know enough to improve the Internet. Once these items are mastered, they can submit an RFC to the IETF just like everyone else does. Asking for advice from the least-competent Internet users of the worst ISP isn't the way to make anything better.
TANGENT: Slate’s Seth Stevenson skewered the AOL ads in “You’ve Got Commercials!,” and mentioned NetZero’s parodies of them in “I Know You Are But What Am ISP?”