The AOL Broadband commercial on my television this morning began: “For 20 years, America Online has been bringing people online …”

Wow — 20 years? That made me do a double-take.

Well, technically, 20 years is correct. The corporate history page on AOL’s own site reminds us that May 25, 1985, was the first landmark in AOL’s history: “Date of incorporation under original founding name, Quantum Computer Services, registered in Delaware.”

Okay. But AOL for Mac and Apple II didn’t launch until more than four years later. The DOS version came along in February 1991, and the Windows version of AOL was launched in 1993.

So yes, AOL’s been around for 20 years. Technically. But to be invoking that stat in a commercial, positioning themselves as the “we’ve been around the longest so we know what we’re doing the most” folks? Strikes me as the kind of stretch that would make Reed Richards proud. Or did I miss the mention of AOL in Bowling For Soup’s video?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 29th, 2005 at 8:43 am and is filed under Internet Stuff, Marketing Stuff.