AOL: You've Got Gmail

The once walled garden is making a big push to be a more open one-stop-shop, starting today with the launch of aggregated email.

With hopes of becoming your homepage, visitors can now log into not only their AOL email, but Yahoo and Gmail as well.  A new set of widgets resides in the top right corner, displaying a list of incoming messages. To view them in entirety, write an email or reply, however, you still have to do it through the client's website.

Email aggregation is just the first step in AOL's planned redesign that was leaked and previewed on TechCrunch earlier this week. It's a new look that relies heavily on feeds, something that Facebook has heavily based its new redesign upon as well.

The other new features will include an RSS reader and something similar to the email widget with access to its own social network Bebo, as well as MySpace and Facebook. AOL recently acquired the social feed SocialThing, which would seem an appropriate addition, although there has yet to be any word on how or when it will incorporate that service.

AOL is breaking new ground as a major web portal that provides direct links and services that aren't under its corporate umbrella. It also just revamped its MapQuest site with a similar widget based layout that includes links to Google and Yahoo properties, YouTube and Flickr.

Let the sun shine in, we say.

by Chris Snyder for Wired.com