AOL Launches E-Mail Alert Service

D U L L E S, Va., Jan. 9 -- America Online Inc. said on Monday its members can now be alerted on their text-enabled digital cellphones or pagers to the arrival of a designatedmessage in their AOL e-mail box.

The AOL Mail Alerts service, which is free to members usingversions of AOL 4.0 or above, is part of the Internet mediagiant’s “AOL Anywhere” strategy that aims to offer its serviceson a variety of devices beyond the personal computer.

“Increasingly, e-mail is becoming consumers’ preferred wayto communicate,” Barry Schuler, president of AOL InteractiveServices Group, said in a statement, “and with the AOL MailAlerts service, members can stay in touch without beingtethered to their PC.”

Separately, AOL said it has included a personalizationfeature to its AOLbyPhone service that lets people access theirAOL accounts and features such as e-mail via phone. It said theAOLbyPhone service, which was launched in late October, hassigned up more than 200,000 AOL members so far.

The company’s purchase of Time Warner Inc. is still awaitingregulatory approval from the Federal Communications Commission.Among the issues the agency is reviewing is AOL’s popularinstant messaging service, which lets members swap messageswith each other in real-time.