AOL May Give Away Services For Free In Strategy Shift »

Posted by: TimALoftis 2 years, 2 months ago

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Move could cut thousands of AOL jobs.

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Comments: 19

Avg rating: (+0/-0 0)
kscorvette
July 6, 2006, 9:35 a.m.
These a-holes got my money for 12 years and now they are giving it away!!!!!!! I gave them up because of the increasing charges. They screwed themselves....
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werewolf
July 6, 2006, 9:43 a.m.
AOL sucks.
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AbrogateThat
July 6, 2006, 9:55 a.m.
netscape=aol
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FenwayFaithful
July 6, 2006, 9:55 a.m.
Could be a good move if they can get a decent portion of the existing broadband, non-aol users to start using their software for free. No web mail product out there is as fast as the client based mail you get with the AOL software. If you can get people to start using that and the advertising exposed by it, maybe you offset the subscribtion loss long term. It's certainly a short term revenue hit but if broadband users adopt, it could pay off big. Alternative is to bleed the subcriber base and then shut the business down.
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TimALoftis
July 6, 2006, 10:26 a.m.
Anyone that has followed AOL knew that someday real changes would have to be made to AOL's business model in order for the company to survive. Time Warner share price has been stuck at around $17 dollars primary as the result of AOL. The dial-up business is fading fast and with services like net-zero charging under 10 dollars and with broadband becoming more affordable, AOL was left in the dust.
Increasing revenue from advertising is now AOL's last hope. Over a year ago when they launched the new AOL.com, many thought that this might be a start of something but 'Clicks' to the portal is steadly declining because most of the people who visited AOL.com was paid subscribers checking their email away from home and the such. As they left AOL (over 800,000 last quarter alone) so did the clicks to the portal. AOL could not really advertise AOL.com as such knowing that even more people would jump ship once everyone knew that almost 100% of AOL's content was now free.
So now what do you do?
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TimALoftis
July 6, 2006, 10:49 a.m.
I think what AOL is now considering might be one of the last few options they have left. A couple of weeks ago it was rumored that they were going to lower their dial-up subscriber rate to match net zero (9.95 permonth). In the end that would not work because net zero would just lower their rates by a couple of dollars or so and you would have nothing but a price war going on in a market that in the end is going to die anyway.
By Making AOL free to those who currently are using other ISP's will force AOL's current subscribers to drop their dial -up and either move to broadband or another dial-up service in order to get AOl's content and features free. By doing so, AOL can then reduce its operating cost greatly by cutting thousands of jobs.
The old AOL was matching up with the likes of MSN, Earthlink, Net-Zero and so on. I see the new AOL if it survives, and I think it can, strictly as a internet portal and going up against the likes of Yahoo.
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jdm
July 6, 2006, 11:59 a.m.
Pretty crappy AOL won't comment. Nicholas Graham got right out in front of the "Cancel my AOL" story. Why wouldn't they at least comment on this one?
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sepintx
July 6, 2006, 12:34 p.m.
It's too bad AOL won't comment on the story. I know there is fair amount of hostility among AOL members who are confused and angry as they learn that AIM users have the same access to AOL services that they are paying for.
The issue is a common one on AOL Journals and increasingly so on AOL message boards. By not addressing the issue, AOL surrenders to rumor mongering about the future of the service.
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alexrudloff
July 6, 2006, 3:14 p.m.
jdm; this is different. It's not a customer service issue, it's a business issue. AOL is a public company, lots and lots of legal/business/ethical reasons for them not to comment.
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DrDash
July 6, 2006, 5:33 p.m.
Alexrudloff, thank you! They can not comment because they cant :) Also, we are all assuming that there is something to comment on, WSJ is not always right. In my opinion they should not open it for free, but make it cheap, 5 bucks a month. Still some exclusivity behind it, but cheap enough to get people to sign up, or stay with it. BTW, AOL Highspeed came out a while ago, basically its a 3 dollar charge for AOL on top of your local Cable or DSL, that is almost free already.
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allegiance1
July 6, 2006, 6:41 p.m.
I wish they stop sending those CD'S
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TimALoftis
July 6, 2006, 6:59 p.m.
I have Bellsouth DSL with the AOL package...total cost for both is $29.90 per month. A year ago I was having to pay nearly $40.00 for just the DSL.
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Dygital
July 6, 2006, 8:03 p.m.
I can say that we (internally) have received internal communications on this. For now, its just looking at a few different strategies in the company. Its nothing "official" which is why AOL won't comment on the story - but when they do, you can take their insight to the bank.
Netscape Anchors, how about an update on the followup?
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mgriffin
July 6, 2006, 9:18 p.m.
I can only say that if this move costs 1000s of AOL jobs, I hope those job cuts start with their stupid-ass CSRs in Pakistan. A hundred bucks says they keep the Pakistan contract and cut the American employees. AOL SUCKS.
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funkytaco
July 6, 2006, 9:20 p.m.
@jdm:
Probably because this isn't bad PR, it is internal relations info.
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G-man
July 10, 2006, 9:58 a.m.
I find it interesting that my posts on this subject and others has been removed in a rather soviet fashion! Was it due to my pointing out the fact that AOL sucks! Maybe they did not enjoy my plugging of www.R3concepts.com as it is my favorite website unlike this one...
These geeks can't take the criticism can they?
Avg rating: (+3/-0 3)
wrinehart
July 20, 2006, 12:47 a.m.
Hmm might be why they are trying to steal money from me right now while they can.. check out http://mysite.verizon.net/wrinehart/
I cannot STAND AOL!
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blur20007
Feb. 7, 2007, 11:35 p.m.
AOL Totally SUCKS. AOL will treat you like dirt and will stop at nothing to keep taking your money. Google poor AOL customer service and you will see.