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Technology Stocks : America Online A good short now???? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bert Klimer who wrote (4)	12/23/1997 11:03:00 PM
From: Frank Ragonese	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 34

Well...I agree that AOL stock price is grossly overvalued. I have been an AOL customer since the beginning (almost 5 years?) and have seen it go through so many problems. I am amazed that it still exists! It looks like the 10 million customer base is their "key" asset..since everything else can be found anywhere else on the Net. I shorted this stock at 85....then added put options on top of that as AOL hit 87 and 90. I don't know what keeps this stock up...but when it drops....look out below...here's hoping it happens soon!

To: Bert Klimer who wrote (4)	12/24/1997 4:42:00 PM
From: FuzzFace	Respond to of 34

AOL vs. ISPs I used to have Compuserve, but they had many of the problems you described with AOL. Frequent busy signals. Annoying crud you had to go through to login, lousy email capabilities. Frequent disconnects. They did have good value added stuff, but I got tired of feeling like I had to use it since I paid for it. I spend too much time on the web as it is, and don't think I can even scratch the surface of info to be had for free on the web. But what I really don't get about AOL is the price of the service. I paid $99/yr for unlimited time on my current ISP in September, and one month after signing up, I saw $89/yr offers. Why do people pay twice as much per year for AOL? Do they get twice as much out of it? Is the value added stuff really worth it? It is superior marketing that gets people to sign up with AOL. But once there, do most subscribers perceive it to be good value? Or is there some cachet AOL has with Joe sixpack that I am not aware of? Or is it just inertia that keeps them renewing their subscription?