Jenne: I just bought a lifetime SI membership, but I've sought encouragement from reading SI for about 6 months now. I'm long AOL, and I'm really finding it hard not to be po'd at Steve Case. I think a lot of the perception problems regarding AOL being left out of a broadband strategy could have been muted by better handling of the past few weeks by Case. I know a stock split gives you no more equity, however it is a bullish signal by management, and AOL did not announce one, even 'tho the stock was above 120 -- the very price that Case has said in the past is the point at which they like to split so that it is affordable for the actual users of AOL. Above 120 I believe this stock gets top-heavy and at the mercy of the institutional investors.
Also, in AOL's PR regarding broadband, they could have said something like "being tethered to a coaxial cable does not fit into AOL's "AOL Anywhere" strategy whereby users will be able to log on to AOL on a wireless connection via their PDA." But they didn't. Instead, there was a milk-toast recognition that broadband is part of the future.
I want to stay log AOL, and I want the stock to rebound, but management is just beginning to burn me up. I'm sure they are lamenting some things too, because losing 45B in market cap had to have got their attention.
BTW, I have @home service, and I have uninstalled the ISP software because their content is so bad. I just use the raw internet access to get to AOL. But it costs me, and the cable is not as it has been touted by some on this board. It's slow once everyone comes home from work. AOL's DSL will be better. |
