Re: AOL using IIC pictures!

[Lover of Delphi -I live on Philadelphia <chstiles@delphi.com>]

anomaly3@mc.net <anomaly3@mc.net> writes:
 
>Maybe AOL is downsizing because of all of the competition they have been
>getting - I read in the newspaper that AOL stock is falling and they are
>probably cutting back and redirecting monies and efforts into recruiting
>and providing better software and support for their customers. If you ask
>me, they should be spending their money on more servers - the primary
>reason why I left AOL is because the call was not local and I got fed up
>with $80 phone bills! - Tony :-)
 
 
The problem with all commercial online services has always been high turn-
over of customers.  That's the reason AOL and Compuserve (and Prodigy, and
GNN, and others) have been giving away billions of diskettes on every type
of magazine every month for two years :) That is expensive.  Prodigy is fast
because their service is actually distributed to the server sites, so they
have fast connections especially in the Internet portion of their service.
 
The reason the commercial 'old line' services are having trouble is that the
main interest of people getting online for the first time is IRC and the
like, and the fee for AOL or CIS or Prodigy seems a little steep compared
to an ISP which allows those users to chat nice and private with some other
person with the same interests.
 
Eventually they've got two choices - number one, lease out access to ISPs so
the ISPs have some kind of way to differentiate their service from other
local providers, and number two, buy ISPs and then offer their service as a
bonus to the normal services.
 
ISPs that wanted to succeed would offer (in larger markets) all the major
online services.  Advertising costs would plummet, because the ISPs would
take care of it on a local level - the online services need only advertise
in ways that reach the ISPs only.
 
Of course, I don't think that any of the online services are going to come to
this brilliant (ahem) conclusion... ;)
 
LoD