Surprise! AOL Wins.
Very interesting article. It confirmed what I already knew: that AOL is a success largely because it has smart marketing people.
The big mistake the article made, in my view, is that AOL's competition is not other online services, or Yahoo, or even other ISPs, necessarily. Its real competition is the Internet itself, especially the Web.
The author seems to be unable to make important distinctions, like between AOL and the Internet, or between online services and ISPs. His logic goes something like this: the Internet is the playing field; online services are the major players; AOL has beaten all the other online services; therefore, AOL has won the day on the Internet.
Now, let's turn that around, on the assumption that AOL and the Internet are competitors. In this light, the Internet is growing vastly faster. Its technology is better. The Web (www.anything.com) is more pervasively marketed than AOL as a brand. The Web is more competitive. AOL and the Internet are only somewhat compatible. While AOL has an advantage in that AOL users can browse the Web, but ISP Web users can't browse AOL, the Web/Internet is outpacing AOL at such a rate that it's a moot point. And AOL users can't browse the Web as quickly or reliably as ISP-based users. The Internet is also benefitting from massive spending by every sector of every industry. AOL is stuck in a niche market, home users, with zero chance of capturing other markets. Relatively little of other markets' money is finding its way to AOL. And the big, big danger looming on the horizon is that the Web/Internet may develop in such a way that it is no longer compatible with AOL. When/if that happens, AOL would be lucky to trade at $2.
With this view in mind, we could turn the "AOL wins" headline on its ass and say, instead: "AOL is the last loser: it is the last remaining online service to fall before the Internet onslaught."
rhet0ric |
