As hinted at last week, AOL has launched AOL India. The portal, a localized version of the United States version, is housed at aol.in. The portal looks very clean and light and could be considered an expression of AOL's now open and free business model. The portal offers audio and video content, email, messenger and e-commerce - oh and it has a direct link to "cricket" on the homepage.
In addition to the India portal launch, AOL has also upgraded both the US and Canada portals with a fresh and clean look. AOL Canada can be found at: aol.ca while the US version, AOL 3.0, was launched in limited beta and can be found here and is also shown below. You can learn more about the new AOL US portal by taking this tour. David Liu, Senior Vice President of Portals & Personal Media at AOL, had this to say of the simultaneous portal launches:
"For any doubters, this should be a wake-up call that AOL is committed to launching global products with the US as just one of the many markets we will serve."
I agree, the launch of the AOL India portal is solid indication of AOL's commitment to expanding its global reach. The success of the simultaneous portal launch plan displays how AOL can execute on a global level.
Disclosure: I am a product manager at AOL in the portal group but do not work on the AOL.com portal.