Give the magic: HP dv5tRumor: AOL to turn Wow.com into 'World of Warcraft' social network
I'm a smidgen skeptical of this rumor, if only because it seems so darn obvious: TechCrunch reported on Tuesday morning that Time Warner's AOL may have found a use for its Wow.com domain, which it acquired in 1998 as part of the offal of what had once been CompuServe.
The source's big scoop? Wow.com has been transferred to the AOL Games division and will become a World of Warcraft social network. If this turns out to be true, expect plenty of level-28 half-elf mages to be typing "Wow.com" into their browsers soon.
It does indeed make sense for the newly Gothamized AOL to use the domain in such a way. Maybe even too much sense, considering some of the company's faux pas in recent years.
TechCrunch's Michael Arrington aptly points out, however, that there are plenty of other World of Warcraft social networks out there--then there's also the fact that the wildly popular online role-playing game from Blizzard, famously lampooned in South Park, is really sort of a social network in its own right.
But you've got to admit that there are some much more heavily clogged niches that AOL could've chosen to dive into with a hot domain name like that. You know, like social news.
Caroline McCarthy, a CNET News staff writer, is a downtown Manhattanite happily addicted to social-media tools and restaurant blogs. Her pre-CNET resume includes interning at an IT security firm and brewing cappuccinos. E-mail Caroline.
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