CONNIE, the friendly if prissy face of AOL for five years, is to hang up her cyberdress and take early retirement.

The internet company said its 2m customers had grown more knowledgeable about the worldwide web. Karen Thomson, chief executive of AOL UK, said Connie was no longer appropriate for today’s more experienced internet users. “Connie was invented way back in the early days,” she said. “We wanted to get over the point that we understood that not everybody thought it was dead easy to plug in a modem and get online.”

Originally invented for one campaign, she proved enduringly, but not universally, popular. Campaign, the advertising-industry bible, nominated Connie as turkey of the year in 2000.

The character, who wore a dress made of streaming web pages, was played by Rachel Willis, daughter of Phil Willis, a Liberal Democrat MP.

AOL’s latest advertising is built around the release of the 8.0 version of its software. It focuses more on what customers can do to entertain themselves on the internet and urges them to cre8, innov8 and communic8.

AOL, which says it made its first profit in the UK last year, is thought to have attracted more than 100,000 broadband customers, helped by its offer of a free modem.