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

To: Tim Kenney who wrote (6386)	12/13/1997 12:57:00 PM
From: Steve Robinett	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 13594

Tim, Anything people already buy mail order--CDs, books, even generic medicine or business forms--are good candidates to sell on the web. Things you want to try on, say, shoes, are maybe not so good. CDs and books are especially good because you can sample them online. My comments on the article EX posted were aimed at trying to answer the question when ad revenue peaks. At some point, AOL runs out of favorable spots for ads. For example, someone on this thread commented that when AOL began putting ads in chat rooms they found the click-through rate to be low compared to say ads on the log-on page. Obviously, if that's true, chatroom ads are worth less than those at the log-on page. When they use up the good sites, if they haven't already, the ad revenue slows. Best -Steve

To: Tim Kenney who wrote (6386)	12/13/1997 1:35:00 PM
From: Brian K Crawford	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 13594

<<Actually, I always thought AOL's better hope was in online shopping>> I agree. Credit card info is already in place, ship-to address too. Impulse purchase opportunities abound, rather than having to rely on drawing in traffic to the site(s). Mixing/blurring of purchase related content and product advertising will continue, with AOL in an advantageous position here. Another opportunity may lie in the shopping club concept, where all purchases thru the system add to the member's volume incentive. AOL has the capability to offer this type of repeat incentive at the merchant level, at the systemwide level, or both. The down and dirty, search for the lowest price, "web shopping brokerage" approach, as Excite and Intuit seem to be headed for, will have its success, no doubt, and some "category killer" sites will too. AOL is setting up its web presence thru AOL.com to be in a position to offer anything an Excite or Yahoo! can offer. I see AOL continuing to benefit from their built-in ease of use advantage, and satisfaction guarantees and volume purchase deals that can be passed on to their member base. Sort of like an online WalMart.