Vendit, I know there are a lot of nervous minds around AOL holders here, they come on this board to seek assurance, to seek re-assurance, to re-confirm their original decision of buying into AOL, well, I was (am) one of them.
But as the day goes by, as I read more from this board and others, as
I gain more knowledge regarding e-commerce and internet, I see the
followings and like to share with my fellow weak-minds:
(strong souls please stop here because it is quite lengthy)
----------------------------------------------------
(1) We heard a lots of websites everyday, but how many are being
remembered at the first shot? Not much, but AOL.com is such an easy name to be
remembered by anyone not only here in USA but also in foreign
countries. For those countries who do not use English as their
first or second language, they definitely have problem to type the URS, such as
YAHOO, PRODIGY, EARTHLINK, LYCOS, EXCITE, ATHM,...........
So AOL has the advantage as the Internet plague spreads into
more corners of this world in the future, and it is why MSFT
cannot wait to change their site name to MSN.
(2) AOL's eyeballs count is the new standards, anyone who wants to
challenge AOL must beat their eyeball count and AOL will not
sit still waiting for that day.
AOL knows the importance of the eyeball count, they know as long
as they hold the spice they hold the e-commerce world, they
hold the highest ad $.
(3) To grow AOL eyeball count, the management who literally grows up
with the internet knows exactly the priorities, they grow the
eyeballs as quickly as possible before the broadband is still in
its pregnancy, and now the broadband has been born but it still
looks for which school this broadband kid should go, it still
argue which cable modem box standard should they use, it still
try to lay the fiber line in yours and my neighborhoods.
What AOL does at this time?
AOL grows crazily for all the regular Joes who just bought
their PC and doesn't know much about PC but like to get into
the internet because everybody is talking about it, their
kids want it or owned a PC but only bought it years ago for
kids or himself to do words or spreadsheets. At this time, most
kids will tell their parents to use AOL because their friends
have AOL... plug in the mail-in AOL cd and let the machine
do the loading, bang, they are net-surfers. This actually
happened in several neighbors of mine.
Now, AOL sees the broadband issues, I am so sure that AOL's
management is much smarter than me and a lot of people on this
board, they must now sit with someone from TimeWarner or Cablevision and/or ATHM (sorry, I only know few) and try to
get the best deal, but they also talk to telephone co., they made
deal with Bell-Atlantic and SBC, and we heard a deal with USWEST
in under going, I also believe AOL's management is talking
to satellite co., MyWeb, Sonny's WebTV box, ...
I truly believe AOL's management also seeks to gain partnership
with network TV stations, CABLE TV stations, even MTVs...
Why? Because the AOL upper management has decided to achieve
the 'AOL Anywhere and AOL Everywhere' slogan which they
defined not long ago, to achieve that goal, they must do all
the above and more.
AOL is the only truly international ISP! They know the growth
rate in USA will eventually slows down but the world is not as
efficient, as fast as, as advanced as USA, there are countries
just start using PCs, there are countries still under
development but they will catch up, years maybe? but who
is in better position than AOL when that moment comes?
(4) AOL knows it has the advantage of the eyeball count, it also
know equally important that to hold the eyeballs forever
is not an easy task, they must constantly enrich the portal's
contents by adopting more new gears such as music, movies,
telephine, fax, radio, cards etc. to benefit their members and
the mass audience so they constantly get privilege or free
services from AOL, result? They'll be more loyal and they will
spend more money shopping on AOL's commerce.
The ICQ's instant messaging system is the most important one
among all AOL's strategies of growing eyeball and keeping them,
why? because it is the sharpest weapon to brain wash the
next generations' AOL would-be members and it is all legal!
(5) Speaking of the AOL share price, I do believe that AOL has
a good team whose job is watching and listing the market, report
to the upper management the everyday market pulse so
in-time PR or news of alliance can hit the news media like
ice tea in a hot summer or hot coffee or something in the cold
winter, why do I say so? I realized the timing of AOL news
is rather coincidental from time to time.
(6) AOL will be the first Internet stock admitted into the DOW 30,
why? DOW index supposes to reflect the all around industries,
and there is no Internet industry until late 90's, the e-commerce
puts the fine print right into the heart of Internet Industry,
how can you held accountable of all industries without inclusion
of the hottest and ever growing Internet Industry?
So, it is a sooner-rather-than-later event.
(7) Why AOL? why not YHOO? why not MSN? why not LCOS? why not ATHM?
why not ....?
(of course, this is assuming you want to play
the internet stock, you don't want to sit on the sideline
anymore, you finally gain enough guts to dive in...)
Besides the (1), (2) and (3) stated above, AOL's price
variation is the smallest among others, it swings between
$6-$10 almost everyday, it usually ends on the upper side, unlike
EBAY, YHOO, AMZN, CMGI, ATHM, LCOS, IVIL..., their price
range is $20 - $30 average, it feels good when it goes up, but
it gets to your nerve when it falls, yes, I have made some
kill on AMZN in 1 hour but I have to watch the screen every
minute, yes, money is good but I cannot sit like that all day,
all weeks,I don't have enough guts!, why? you may ask, well
even though we talk about the new fundamentals of the internet,
we talk about the eyeball counts, I still like to see
EARNING, 99% of the net stocks are at loss, small revenue,
and AOL is the only one has good earning and good revenue with
potential to grow more.
As a whole, You either don't get in the internet stock or
you seek the 'savest risk' among all the risks there.
(8) Hey, cut all these b.s., why are you doing this?
Because I really made good money by staying long on AOL, I stop
trading AOL, I just sit here watching, yes, it is quite boring
of not doing trades but I am caught between hard rocks, if I trade
AOL, I may gain small money but I lost too, I have lost money
or lost shares (more adequately) by trading AOLs!
Lesson: don't bet against AOL!
(9) I used to believe that if you want to hurt someone, you don't
have to go violent, you just suggest him/her to buy stocks,
he/she most likely will suffer after the suggestion.
Guess what? I have modified that philosophy, I actually made
friends by suggesting them to buy AOL, 3 of my friends bought AOL
and they all made money in a quick way, I couldn't find a better
way to make friends nowadays other than suggest them to buy AOL,
boy, my friends are very friendly lately...
(10) should you still have doubts of why you should hold AOL then
you have to find someone else's posts or writings, but I
would suggest you to read my favorite analyst, Kevin Pregil from
WWW.STREETADVISOR.COM, he is the best among the best, go that site
and read all his articles regarding AOL.
Sorry, I told you this is going to be a long one on line 10 ... <G>
LONG LIVE! AOL!
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