Editing CompuServe (section)

== WOW! service ==
{{For|the cable company with the same stylized acronym|Wide Open West}}
[[File:Wowfromcompuserve.png|thumb|The WOW! logo]]
{{anchor|WOW (online service)}}  {{anchor|Wow (online service)}} {{anchor|Wow! (online service)}}
Wow! (styled WOW!) was an unlimited-access flat-rate [[online service]] operated by CompuServe, starting March 1996;<ref name="WowNYT.IPL">{{Cite news |last=Lewis |first=Peter H. |date=March 14, 1996 |title=A New Compuserve Service Plans to Appeal to Families |work=[[The New York Times]] |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1996/03/14/business/a-new-compuserve-service-plans-to-appeal-to-families.html}}</ref> its closure was announced by November of the same year, to be effective at the end of January 1997.<ref name="Compu96.NYT">{{Cite news |last=Lewis |first=Peter H. |date=November 22, 1996 |title=Compuserve Changes Focus To Home Office And Businesses |work=[[The New York Times]] |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1996/11/22/business/compuserve-changes-focus-to-home-office-and-businesses.html}}</ref>

Several class-action lawsuits were filed, claiming that WOW! was sold to stockholders with false and misleading information. Wow! was supposed to make the company competitive with AOL – "a proprietary service aimed at families and novice computer users."<ref name=WowNYT.IPL/> The ''Wow! Information Service'', announced in late 1995,<ref>{{Cite news |date=October 28, 1995 |title=Compuserve Sets Plans for New Service |work=[[The New York Times]] |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1995/10/28/business/compuserve-sets-plans-for-new-service.html}}</ref> was supposed to commence with Microsoft [[Windows 95]] SR2, the first to include [[Internet Explorer]]. Knowing that bundling their browser would be considered anti-competitive, Microsoft also planned to bundle installers for several major ISPs into Windows, but CompuServe's software was not ready.

=== Wow.com domain ===
AOL retained the [[domain name]] wow.com after it acquired CompuServe, and kept it dormant from the shut-down of Wow! until 2007. In mid-2007, AOL considered transferring its [[Digg]]-style [[news aggregator]], then hosted at [[Netscape|Netscape.com]], to wow.com,<ref>{{Cite news |last=Arrington |first=Michael |date=August 31, 2007 |title=Update On Netscape.com: It's Done, Possibly Moving To WOW.com. Big AOL Layoffs Coming. |work=[[TechCrunch]] |url=https://techcrunch.com/2007/08/31/update-on-netscapecom-its-done-possibly-moving-to-wowcom |access-date=September 12, 2013}}</ref> before ultimately transferring it to [[Propeller.com]]. Toward the end of the year, AOL was reportedly working on using the domain for a [[social networking service]] concerning the popular online role-playing game ''[[World of Warcraft]]''.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Arrington |first=Michael |date=October 2, 2007 |title=AOL Finds An Obvious Use For WOW.com: A World Of Warcraft Social Network |work=TechCrunch |url=https://techcrunch.com/2007/10/02/aol-finds-an-obvious-use-for-wowcom-world-of-warcraft-social-network |access-date=September 12, 2013}}</ref>

From October 2010 until its 2015 shut-down, some of that was transferred to a subdomain of [[Joystiq]]. The domain wow.com was used simultaneously as a [[deal of the day]] site similar to [[Groupon]].<ref>{{Cite news |last=Schonfeld |first=Erick |date=October 5, 2010 |title=Wow! AOL Thinks It Can Succeed As The 500th Groupon Clone |work=TechCrunch |url=https://techcrunch.com/2010/10/05/wow-aol-groupon-clone |access-date=September 12, 2013}}</ref> However, that site was also short-lived, shutting down in late 2011.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Wow FAQs |url=http://help.aol.com/help/microsites/microsite.do?cmd=displayKC&docType=kc&externalId=46336 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130420213936/http://help.aol.com/help/microsites/microsite.do?cmd=displayKC&docType=kc&externalId=46336 |archive-date=April 20, 2013 |access-date=September 12, 2013 |publisher=[[AOL]] |quote=Print off all your Wowchers by Dec. 31, 2011.}}</ref>

As of January 2019, wow.com is a search engine powered by [[Bing (search engine)|Bing]], using the same back-end as AOL Search, which is now part of [[Oath Inc.]]