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Technology Stocks : America On-Line: will it survive ...?
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To: Brian K Crawford who wrote (536)11/5/1996 10:28:00 PM
From: Kashish King   of 13594
 
Well, let's define some terms for the purposes of discussion. An ISP is somebody who provides pipe. A Supersite provides its users with navigational tools on top of a highly structured and simplified view of the all sites. A Site is an individual point of presence and as such forms a unit information source in webspace. All of those are part of the medium of webspace and what's left are content providers and the particular content: visual, audible and textual information. I'm not claiming this fits many, or any, defined models but it works for me.

Now, you hit the problem square on the head with the observation that AOL seems to be pursuing all of the above. That strategy is doomed to failure since it's one company against legions of developers focusing on one aspect of the problem, say, navigational tools. AOL must focus its energy on being the world's largest, most comprehensive and most easy-to-use Supersite if I can coin my own term.

Now, they will have a large number of their own sites combined with a large content component to their business but that is still logically and operational apart from the Supersite. They may also get involved in some delivery system issues such as cable modems. They may be part of defining interface standards for local sites that what to get the AOL logo or something. Again, all of that subsumes to the overarching goal of being an informational Supersite. If they don't focus on that they will drown in their own confusion and in the end they will loose because they will get one-upped everytime.

I didn't go into what makes a successful Supersite, where the value lies and why it will be difficult, if not impossible, to provide the same level of service once a particular service gets a lead. I think we can say without much reservation that Microsoft is running around like the proverbial chicken with its head cut off too so there's an opportunity here for AOL but they have to move fast.
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