Who audits AOL's membership numbers? Message Board

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Technology Stocks : Who audits AOL's membership numbers?

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To: Val who wrote (20)	3/31/1997 11:48:00 PM
From: Thom Taylor	of 65

So you have enough of your own AOL April puts not to buy mine. Look at the last two days? The worst of the worst. Very good companies much better in every respect and getting killed. And what is AOL doing? I SAID WHAT IS AOL DOING? NOT, I repeat NOT going down. What do you think she'll do when the market finally wants to go up. She'll shoot off like a rocket to the up side. You won't be able to buy $45 or $42.50 call options fast enough. In the world of politics and stocks perception is everything. Clinton learned that and that's why he's got a second term. It does not matter what a company has done but what it might do in the future. The only thing that will bring her down is bad subscription numbers. And here's the dirty little secret. If you take a free be month from AOL you are a subscriber. Even though you haven't paid a dime you make their numbers look good. Guess what else? Every time you get a free be disk with a new pass word and sign on number you get a free month. I heard of a person who took a whole year of AOL for free just buy signing up and cancelling over and over. How much did that person pay? ZERO! The question is are the investors looking a the churn rate? NO! Just the subscriber rate and over all population. SOOoooOOooo if the subscriber rate goes up and the subscription population stays the same the investors don't care. Here's another dirty little secret: The advertising rates are based on what? Go a head, guess. That's right the number of subscribers they have. Now you know why AOL is calling it's old customer base and giving away 1 & 2 months for FREE. And guess what that free be customer counts as? THAT'S right A SUBSCRIBER. It all sounds like a pretty good scam. So good that they have been sued left and right for all kinds of reasons and they continue to walk through fire. They are so good in fact I have become bullish and I own April put contracts. Hey! I've seen the light. If you can't fight them join them. Short On Value News letters that looks for the worst of the worst and best short candidates put AOL at the top of their list. And for all those people who pay $20 to AOL who could get a local net provider for as low at $10 unlimited monthly time, they are all too computer illerate to install netscape or what ever use to a local service. Also people are creatures of habit and don't what to lose their AOL address even though JUNO is out there for free. I have an AOL friend I gave a Juno disk to 10 months ago and she finally just loaded it on last Saturday. WHY? I have know answer. Here's another thing. 94-95 is when they had great computer sales mostly of Windows 95 set ups. These people just clicked on the AOL ICON and signed up. They don't know how to sign off. AOL is also one of the few pure internet plays. Here are the other pure plays TSCN, CSRV, NSCP, NETC. Now compare those charts to AOL. You have to go with AOL even though IMHO CSRV is a much better product and older name. I bet their fundamental are better too. NSCP battle with MSFT will be all over in 18 months when Widows 95 users convert everyone to Java. NSCP with be the loser unless they can reinvent themselves. NETC is an AOL poor step child and will lose out to AOL in the end. So for a pure internet play AOL is the only winner unless MSFT puts them out of business but MSFT is not a pure internet play. I hear USRX way working on the modem deal but was a neck to neck race with MOT/IBM and someone else. The biggest problem USRX has is copper lines still connect most phone and cable company connections. After this fastest modem the copper lines are going to keep their speed from increasing. If we all were on fiber optics then it wouldn't be a problem. It's kinda like breaking the sound barrier. It will happen but when? Most of the country is still on copper and will be so for years. NASD was -27 bad news. Good news, CSCO didn't go down much. INTC did go down but stayed. Software sector in fidelity hasn't lost ground since the % rate hike. Techs lead the market. They better hurry up an go up. TT

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