Seems like only yesterday that I posted my answer to that line of reasoning.
You seem to think that technical issues play second fiddle to marketing ones. I'm saying they're both important. And I grant you that AOL has been very smart in its marketing.
In your other article you said:
I think AOL has a better idea of what mainstream consumers want and how to market to them than you exhibit with that brash prediction.
Okay, if you want a battle of links, read this:
techweb.com
Again, I agree that AOL has been a much smarter marketer than its competition so far, though that gap is closing. But I ask you this: does AOL stand a chance against Hollywood? The Internet is a whole different game than it was 5 years ago, or even 1 year ago.
My answer, again, is: AOL can only compete if they can team up with Hollywood. And my point, based on technical arguments, is that they ultimately can't, because they won't be able to scale their network to carry the kind of content Hollywood wants to provide.
Let me explain why that is. All of AOL's Internet content is funneled through a single gateway in Reston, VA. It's because of that gateway that AOL users surf the Web at much lower speeds than the rest of the world. Now, streaming video is the biggest bandwidth hog there is. The current Internet can't support it. But big, big players are investing billions to create new backbones for the Internet, so that they can deliver high-cost content like streamed video. GTE, for instance, bought 25% of the Qwest fibre optic network. That 25% represents 100 times the current capacity of the Internet. And the fibre is due to be lit in something like 6 months.
If AOL can't serve the current content of the Internet reliably or speedily to its users, how are they going to do so when the Internet is 100 or 1,000 times the size it is today? AOL's network will not scale to that, no matter how much they spend.
This discussion is actually verh helpful, thanks. It's making me realize how deep in trouble AOL is, and consequently how important it is to short sooner rather than later.
rhet0ric |
