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Technology Stocks : America On-Line: will it survive ...?
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To: John M. Saxton, Jr. who wrote (1191)1/24/1997 9:45:00 AM
From: Joel Sternberg   of 13594
 
>Was your question rhetorical ?

I think their appeal is to the vast non-technical pool out there. I do this tech stuff for a living. Maybe
you do too. But people like my in-laws and my dad who have no idea about this stuff are in awe of
installing easy to use / self configuring software that gets them on the internet.

There is so much hype. Everyone wants to be on the Internet. Most lay people figure there is no way to
participate. AOL (and others like them) make this possible and easy. That is their niche. More like the
Grand Canyon than a niche... <

I think you bring up an excellent point. Non-AOL'ers who are writing on Silicon Investor, are not exactly representative of the population at large. "We" may not need AOL, but a lot of others may. Basically, there is a selection bias in the group that uses this forum. However, this is a problem with your reasoning, that makes me bearish on this stock. AOL is easier to use NOW. But what is the picture looking into the future. Once upon a time people like AOL because they could send e-mail. Well, these features are now being built into standard browser software. Other people say that AOL brings order to the net (although some would just call that censorship). But search engines are getting better and better, bookmarks exist, and new software is being developed to automatically search the web for you and send you the things you want to see. Therefore, I see AOL's reason for being eroding over time. The only thing that can keep them going in content that is not available on the web. What makes anyone think that they will be successful as content developers. They cannot count on exclusive arrangements with outside content developers, because outside content developers want the maximum audience possible. The best AOL can hope for is to be one of many channels on the web.
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