If content is king--and I think it is--AOL needs to draw more and more on content appealing to other than newbies. After all, as time goes by, there will be fewer and fewer newbies.
Speaking of content, Alanis Morissette debuted her new video exclusively on AOL. Amazingly, she snubbed MTV and the rest of cable land. It would be great to see more and more of this down the road.
Another thing to keep in mind is how we define the term "newbies." I have friends that have used computers for years, both at work and at home -- and in many ways they are still a "newbie." The reason I bring this up is that a lot of members stay with AOL simply for the fact that it is easy to use, install, etc. It also has all the "sticky" apps, such as chat, buddy list, IM, home pages, etc. For them, they really don't see a reason to move up from "newbie" status.
I think we both know that your referring to new subscribers, which at some point will slow in growth -- simply because the pool of available new subscribers will eventually begin to dwindle.
I think we can also see that AOL is beginning to make strategic investments and/or buyouts of technology companies that should broaden it's content offerings. Examples -- Nullsoft, ICQ, Netscape.
BTW, I saw this tidbit on AOL -- rumors that AOL may buy out Juno - news.com
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