AOL Gives Users Access to Gmail, Yahoo and Hotmail, Facebook and Twitter to Follow

AOL has begun what it says will be a complete site revamp in an effort to bring back users.

Over the years AOL has become a shadow of what it once was. In its heyday, AOL was exactly what it purported to be, America Online. These days the company is struggling, and in an effort to attract new users, AOL has re-focused its objectives and is hoping that a few changes will help advertising revenues.

In an official blog on Tuesday, AOL announced that the company would be incorporating access to email accounts from third party providers. In what could be considered a contender for Understatement of the Century, Sanjay Nayar told users, “We realize that AOL.com is not the only web site that you use,” and that the company would add Yahoo! mail, Gmail and Hotmail to its homepage meaning users could preview mail from third party clients using the AOL homepage.

The addition of Gmail and Yahoo! to AOL is just the beginning of what will be a whole ream of changes on the homepage.

"If we want to remain relevant as a launching pad, we have to accept the fact that we have to be a starting point for all of the Web and not just our own stuff," said James Clark, vice president of AOL’s home page operations told the Washington Post.

Over the next six weeks the company will allow customers to log into their Facebook, Myspace, Bebo, and Twitter accounts as well as receive their own RSS feeds.