despite the recent swoon of the stock price, aol imho continues to grow stronger. this will reflect in the stock price at some point. aol's subs #'s continue to grow at amazing rates here in the u.s. and now with a fresh attack on europe i expect that subs will grow abroad as well at a dominant pace. this of course is the backbone of aol.
aol continues to cater to these subs with ever improving content and service. aol 5.0 should add to this "stickyness" to retain the majority of these subs. i am currently using "u got pictures" and it is great. i personally don't see free isp's hurting aol at all. aol, being in the dominant position and with multiple brands, is positioned nicely to compete with whatever can be thrown at them.
aol is not only gaining subs, but they are monitizing these subs nicely. they are signing e-commerce/tenant deals left and right. their shop@aol service is to have 400 members plus and all pay a premium just to be there. as e-commerce continues to grow, and it has hardly begun, aol will be a big winner. but it goes deeper. many of the alliances with e-companies include use of alliance software, a % of the company and co-branded sites where aol gets a majority or all of the add revenue. aol will also begin to see revenue from properties they own such as moviefone, nullsoft, winamp, ect.
another stream of revenue will be software from their alliance with sun - iPlanet. this in the years to come is a high margin, large source of revenue. netscape also will continue to make rev. from software.
aol is also positioned brillantly imho for the future. "aol anywhere" is starting to take shape. dsl will succeed as well as cable imho and satellite/wireless is where it will be at in the future. cable and aol will unite eventually. at+t has many problems and needs aol much more then vice versa. netscape with 5.0 will reenter the browser competition not only on the p.c. front but for hand -held devices as it's footprint is small enough to use on these devices. this will be a huge market in the future.
and finally, the future platform, or os of the internet will be instant messaging. think about it. its always on - dominating the desktop - and is a powerful and wildly popular function. already aol is fleshing out icq. it has a search engine, will have a quote service for stocks, will be fitted with voice (net2phone), and other downloadable functions will continue to be added. ie: emusic and winamp's recent alliance to bring downloadable music to icq. as the downloadable features continue to be added, this will turn into a desktop. it acts as a beeper, phone, news service ect. and most of all a gateway to the internet. aol with its 80 + million users and deals with other companies both business(ibm and novell) and personal users (earthlink/mindspring ect.) is positioned to dominate and control this evolving technology.
so imho aol is a company and stock that will grow tremendously and is positioned to dominate a technology revolution that is just beginning. sorry about the length and the rambling. just some random thoughts in this time of slow or recessing stock price movement.
take care
mark
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