LindyBill , AOL 1/3 of all 150 mill worldwide online users:
Sorry if somebody posted this already.
When AOL gets a broadband provider ( and considering it's 75 Bill market cap it should be no problem finding "stock-cash",, what will these 50 mill users be worth on the market?
TA
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dailynews.yahoo.com
Friday January 8 3:27 PM ET
AOL Chat Program Doubles Membership
By CHRIS ALLBRITTON AP Cyberspace Writer
NEW YORK (AP) - An Internet chat program owned by America Online has almost doubled its membership in six months, helping AOL beef up its presence in cyberspace.
Mirabilis, an AOL-owned company that produced ICQ - Internet-speak for ''I Seek You'' - announced Friday that it had 25 million registered users, 11 million active, daily users and up to 800,000 simultaneous users chatting away at any one time.
The ICQ software allows users to chat privately with other members over the Internet in real time, much as AOL's members can do using the service's Instant Message function.
It has proven wildly popular with young, computer-savvy people who aren't members of America Online. Also, ICQ is free and can be downloaded by anyone, while AOL charges its online service members $22.95 a month.
''This, at its heart, is a communication portal for people who don't have AOL,'' said Ted Leonsis, president of AOL Studios. ''The Web is a lonely place and this gives you a lot of intimacy.''
In June 1998, America Online bought Mirabilis and access to the 12.8 million registered users it then had. Today, AOL has more than 15 million members, making it the largest online provider in the world. Leonsis said only about 6 percent of the members use both services.
With its varied holdings of ICQ, Digital Cities, CompuServe, its online service and its own separate instant messaging software, America Online Inc. (NYSE:AOL - news) has access to about 41 million people.
If the U.S. Justice Department approves AOL's purchase of Netscape Communications Corp. (Nasdaq:NSCP - news) and its popular Web portal Netcenter, which has 10 million registered users, AOL will own services used by more than 50 million people.
That's about a third of the world's wired population - 150 million - according to NUA Limited, an Internet research firm.
''We've got a big footprint in the online world,'' said Leonsis. |
