Brian,
This reads a lot like AOL fishing for yet more names that they can claim as 'eyeballs', rightfully or not.
If I understand this release correctly, the users of Lotus products would be required to register themselves on AOL's buddy list, whatever that entails, though it probably includes stuff AOL doesn't really need to know but will use for future marketing.
It appears that AOL, projecting a decline in new member enrollments, is attempting to show some sort of 'participation' growth through their instant mail messaging subsystem. The brainstormers at AOL have dredged up yet another venue through which they can make unsubstantiated enrollment claims, create hype, and then charge additional ad dollars. It would be a fairly safe bet that any messages arriving via the buddy list will be plastered with ads, or that the new Lotus enrollees will be spammed to death with sales pitches.
The question is, how many people using IBM's Lotus products who have identified a want or need for instant messaging (which in itself is something of a stretch), have a desire to communicate with the AOL hoi-polloi through AOL's proprietary message system instead of using a competing, more established, more universal, less congested, more dependable messaging system. One in which a far larger cross-section of the Internet will be represented, not just AOLers and some new Lotus users.
AOL's non-Internet 'proprietariness' becomes evermore evident as an albatross around their necks. On one hand, they trot out their in-house member numbers to differentiate themselves whenever they want to justify their stock price and ad rates. On the other hand, they lately seem to be having to reach beyond their captive members, to the Internet as a whole, for their continuing growth. They can't have it both ways.
This announcement may be interpreted as indicating that AOL admits it cannot maintain any kind of decent future growth rate without going beyond their closed AOL-only system and embracing the Internet directly, though that probably isn't the spin they would place on it. What's their stock worth if their proprietary member base stops growing (or starts shrinking!) and they are forced to compete directly with every other business on the Internet for revenue?
The competition out there is fierce. >8( |
