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Technology Stocks : America On-Line: will it survive ...? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: John Kratus who wrote (5247)	10/26/1997 12:13:00 AM
From: jack rand	Respond to of 13594

Re: Strength in numbers Number of subs is less and less the issue than where those subs go when they are online. The eyeballs are useless to AOL unless they stay in ad space controlled by AOL. To do that AOL has to compete in content against the multitudes of players and billions of dollars developing on the Web. It doesn't even matter that many of them will fail -- there always will be others rushing to take their place. Just odds say that some will create what will be killer content that takes the Web by storm. And, of course there's the big media outfits like CNN and Disney who will be there no matter what. For AOL to compete against that -- to keep its subs in AOL ad space -- is like saying that a single movie studio can do better than all of Hollywood combined; or a single cable programming company can do better than all. All that AOL has going for it now is newbies -- and its done a great job of keeping them at low level (sort of like 'pill time' in One Flew Over The Cukoo's Nest). But they will get more adventurous. And huge numbers of others are gaining first exposure to online via access to the Internet at work, school, and college. In fact a recent survey showed access from work growing at over 60%.