While Microsoft mulls its broadband strategy for MSN, America Online launched its first volley in the space on Monday.

AOL is rolling out a new campaign aimed at increasing its visibility in the broadband space. As part of this new "Welcome to the World Wide Wow" initiative, AOL is currently beta testing a new version of its client, dubbed America Online 8.0 Plus, which brings AOL to par many of the features in MSN 8. The updated AOL software is set to be released on March 31.

Many analysts said that Microsoft one-upped AOL last fall in the parental controls area - one where AOL previously had enjoyed a lead over MSN.

MSN 8 shipped with a feature called the "Online activity report" which will e-mail a summary of a child's Internet usage to the parent weekly. AOL is introducing a similar feature, dubbed "AOL Guardian," in AOL 8.0 Plus. Both the MSN and AOL services e-mail parents a list of Web sites the child successfully visited and was blocked from visiting. AOL Guardian reports to the parent the number of e-mails and instant messages that were sent, while MSN 8 lists with whom the child with over e-mail or instant messaging.

Jupiter Research analyst David Card says he didn't think either service's parental controls were good enough to make people switch, "It doesn't matter. I don't think MSN 8 had the lead particularly, but I'm not sure that anybody ever had the lead with parental controls," Card says.

"It sounds as if AOL is looking to catch up to MSN 8 which we released last October, with a variety of features that have been available on MSN for some time," says MSN Product Manager Lisa Gurry. "We recognize the value of software and that's been our focus before. Even with their new features it looks like they're going to be behind in features particularly in terms of communicatons."

Gurry declined to offer any details on how Microsoft is evolving its MSN product or strategy to take into account the growing prevalence of broadband connectivity at home and work.

AOL 8.0 Plus is one of only a few major interim releases that AOL has fielded. Typically, the company releases a major upgrade to its service each fall and makes only minor changes to existing versions. AOL 8.0 Plus will require a complete download and installation. Jupiter's Card suggested this may not be a major hurdle, "I do think consumers are getting more used to downloading software and upgrading," he says.

AOL 8.0 Plus also includes software complementing the company's new "bring your own access" strategy.

At AOL Strategy Day in December, the company announced it would begin marketing to customers of broadband cable modem and DSL services other than AOL's own. This reflects a shift from providing Internet access to providing Internet content and services. A new feature known as "Internet Access Controls" allows the member to maintain their parental control settings even over a broadband connection.

In the past, AOL's parental controls only applied when the computer was signed into the AOL service. This meant that, over broadband, a child could circumvent parental controls by logging out of AOL and opening an external browser like Internet Explorer.

Sources say AOL simultaneously is testing yet another interim release internally known as AOL 8.0 Plus Refresh. In addition to the 8.0 Plus features, it contains a feature known as Video Messenger, which allows the exchange of non-streaming video up to 20 seconds long within an instant message.