Going after the desktop:
all AOL, all the time?
The online giant hopes
‘persistence' will pay off
By Thomas E. Weber
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Unless you're a college student or a professional
techie, you probably haven't heard of ICQ. But
the obscure software package may be America
Online Inc.'s ticket to dominating the Internet in
the coming years. ICQ (for “I seek you”) is a
sophisticated instant-message system that can
link individual users in a real-time dialogue via
the Internet.
Briefing Book on America Online
Briefing Book on Microsoft
Briefing Book on At Home
Briefing Book on AT&T
As online
advertising and
electronic
commerce emerge
as the hottest
areas for making
money on the
Web, the number
of members has
become less
important than the
number of
viewers.
IT CAN ALERT YOU when designated friends are
online and let you chat, transfer files or play games — all
while other applications are running on your PC. It can
search out users with similar interests and even send and
receive voice messages.
Better still, ICQ pops up on your screen before any
other browsers or portals to occupy the most hotly coveted
real estate in business right now: the first thing you see when
you turn on your PC. AOL purchased Mirabilis Ltd., the
company that created ICQ, for $300 million in June and,
along with it, access to ICQ's 28 million users world-wide,
many of them just the kind of savvy, sophisticated techies
who have avoided AOL before.
With 16 million members paying monthly fees, AOL's
flagship service far outpaces its closest competitors,
MindSpring Enterprises Inc. and EarthLink Network Inc.,
which each boast about one million members. AOL earned
$91.8 million on $2.6 billion in revenue in its most recent
fiscal year, making it one of the few big profitable Internet
ventures, and with its acquisition of Netscape
Communications Corp., made final this week, it has
solidified its dominance of cyberspace.
But the business is fast changing. As online advertising
and electronic commerce emerge as the hottest areas for
making money on the Web, the number of members has
become less important than the number of viewers. Major
portal sites command huge audiences that beam in from all
sorts of services, including AOL, and here the race is much
closer. AOL still boasts the biggest audience, with nearly 38
million unique visitors to its various online properties in
January, according to ratings compiled by Media Metrix
Inc. But Microsoft Corp., in the No. 2 spot, enjoyed an
audience of more than 30 million, and Yahoo! Inc. trailed
closely behind at 29 million. While portal sites don't collect
monthly fees, they make money from advertising and, in
some cases, merchandise sales.
America Online, Inc. (AOL)
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