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Technology Stocks : America On-Line (AOL) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Steve Robinett who wrote (24039)	6/25/1999 2:55:00 PM
From: Ed Forrest	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 41369

>>and more on content appealing to other than newbies. After all, as time goes by, there will be fewer and fewer newbies.<< Steve Why do you feel there will be "fewer"? Ed

To: Steve Robinett who wrote (24039)	6/25/1999 3:14:00 PM
From: Sam	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 41369

If content is king--and I think it is--AOL needs to draw more and more on content appealing to other than newbies. After all, as time goes by, there will be fewer and fewer newbies. Speaking of content, Alanis Morissette debuted her new video exclusively on AOL. Amazingly, she snubbed MTV and the rest of cable land. It would be great to see more and more of this down the road. Another thing to keep in mind is how we define the term "newbies." I have friends that have used computers for years, both at work and at home -- and in many ways they are still a "newbie." The reason I bring this up is that a lot of members stay with AOL simply for the fact that it is easy to use, install, etc. It also has all the "sticky" apps, such as chat, buddy list, IM, home pages, etc. For them, they really don't see a reason to move up from "newbie" status. I think we both know that your referring to new subscribers, which at some point will slow in growth -- simply because the pool of available new subscribers will eventually begin to dwindle. I think we can also see that AOL is beginning to make strategic investments and/or buyouts of technology companies that should broaden it's content offerings. Examples -- Nullsoft, ICQ, Netscape. BTW, I saw this tidbit on AOL -- rumors that AOL may buy out Juno - news.com $am

To: Steve Robinett who wrote (24039)	6/25/1999 3:18:00 PM
From: Rascal	Respond to of 41369

<<Which brings up another question. I took an informal poll a while back among people on the net but not AOL subscribers to find out whether they would switch to AOL(This was at about the time of the "You've Got Mail" movie.) I got no takers.>> IMHO #1 the people you asked who were already on the net were probably way too sophisticated and technical to provide a meaningful "mass market sample" for research. Besides, you were asking them to CHANGE something that ws already working for them.. #2 the fact that people do not readily CHANGE is actually a benefit for AOL and plays an important part in their CUSTOMER RETENTION strategies. #3 AOL has ingrained themselves into the fabric of society. They are AMERICAonline and positioned themselves to the kids and youth. If they want Ricky Martin or Austin Powers or the Spice Girls, AOLhas them wrapped up. #4 If everyone of the 17MM (or is it 20MM?) AOL subscribers got 1 (one) person to join so they could have Instant messaging we could already meet the 34MM number. (AOL markets to subscribers like this constantly (remember when Banks had the "Bring a Friend Program in the 80's?.) #5 17MM subscribers over 12 months is only 1.4MM a month! It's do-able. I started on the net actively in 1996. I have used various ISP's, since then. AOL was first followed by MSN, AT&T, Bell Atlantic, Concentric and NetZero. I have gone back to AOL as of 2 months ago. I finally decided that as a stockholder, I should really know what is going on at AOL and pay them my monthly fee. The changes since 1996 are astounding. Even when I cancelled they wooed me back. Believe me, this is their business and they know how to do it right. I am sure that next year everyone who owns AOL stock will be winners. Mr. Ra$cal!

To: Steve Robinett who wrote (24039)	6/26/1999 8:37:00 AM
From: tang	Respond to of 41369

Steve Robinett: You said:"If content is king--and I think it is--AOL needs to draw more and more on content appealing to other than newbies. After all, as time goes by, there will be fewer and fewer newbies." Do you really know why you and I are not AOL subscriber? Do you really think your ISP and mine have a log-on screen with contents better than AOL? Let me tell you something: because you and I know where to find a cheaper ISP, you and I don't care what the first screen we see because we can always URL to the location we wanted. Do you really think there are more techies than newbies in this world? There are so many (I meant SO MANY!) people are afraid of computers because they don't know xxxx about it, do you think it is an easy task to bring them to the internet world? To bring them, you must provide them an easy method and provide them the 'taste of blood', AOL is just doing that! Do you think there is only 100 millions of people in this world? do you think 'as the time goes by' is 1 or 2 years? Your time frame is way off the base, there are about 5 billion people in this world! If 10% of them using computers, that is 5,000,000,000 * 0.1 = 500,000,000, according to all kinds of surveys, we have only less than 70,000,000 people using the net, so do you think in 1-2 years that newbies of the world will be used up? Given 20% of the world population using the net, that provides enough fuel to the growth of AOL for the next n years! What AOL tries to do now is not only continuing bringing newbies to the net but also preparing the lucrative margin high end access methods such as DSL, satellite, handheld tools, TV,..., AOL must prepare for the future because there are so many untouched potential newbies to be lured into the net world and there are so many matured yesterdaysnewbies want to be led to the next stage of the net. Will you go to a special store to buy things if you know there is a huge mall having many similar stores can provide you choices? AOL is trying to be that MALL, AOL is trying to be the e-WalMat. As an Internet stock holder, especially an AOL stock holder(long), you must imaging 2,3,4,5,.. years from now what this world will become to as the internet pushes forward.