communicate with just about anyone anywhere. >> one of the things that aol realizes is that america online can't be all 200 plus million people at once. you need little neighborhoods. so chat rooms become internet neighborhoods where people who share interests create their own little space. >> you can either click on the chat button up here or go to the people connection. that's what america online calls it. and when you get there, click on a list of rooms to find different categories of rooms. >> when i was a kid, i didn't know any other black gay people. the only people that i knew were the folks that i met on america online. i didn't come out to my mother till much later but i was out on the internet. >> in many respects aol was one of the first social media companies. >> computer communication is not like human communication. there's no facial expression to help you know which way something ambiguous is meant. so the isolated communicators of cyberspace have come up with little signs made out of punctuation marks. they're called emoticons.