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

To: White Shoes who wrote (6713)	1/7/1998 2:28:00 AM
From: Paul Houle	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 13594

I agree AOL is not for everyone. If a customer selects an ISP (instead of AOL or others) on a friend's recommendation, that's one AOL loses. This is my "critical mass" argument in a nutshell -- AOL is so prevalent in the market it dominates, that the service the friend recommends IS AOL. Although to be fair you mentioned "in a place AOL does not exist." AOL will not get that business, I grant you that. Yes , AOL commercials are intended to attract the non-computer-literate. As any advertising attempts to attract customers to a product new to them. I grant AOL may not be the service of choice for the technically savvy. It does not focus itself on being that. As Steve Case said, it's not about technology, it's about making the technology easy to use. If "better" service hinges on more complex features, raw bandwidth, etc. AOL is not for that customer. I believe that is rarely the case in the real world. With you or I yes, but not with the mainstream user. It's amazing how angry AOL seems to make so many people, just because it is a simple, closed and managed system. This helps many people, for heaven's sake. Those who grow beyond it are free to leave. This is the business AOL has chosen to cater to. They have done much to advance the internet within popular culture, to the benefit of us all. Paul

To: White Shoes who wrote (6713)	1/7/1998 11:24:00 AM
From: Gaffa	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 13594

What do you figure people do in locales on the globe where AOL doesn't exist? They take 10 minutes to figure out what "Internet access" is, get an ISP based on a friend's recommendation, fire up a browser and get surfin'! What's AOL? A few months ago I was goofing on the web and had a conversation with a kid in Lebanon at I think talk.com, one of those Java based chat sites. He has his ISP obviously, so I asked him about the service there. He complained about the hourly charge, which was high, slow speed, and said "too bad we don't have AOL". Turned out the kid visited the states the previous summer and saw his cousin's AOL account. Now I am sure things will change fast, and ADSL will be widely available in Afghanistan in no time, technology is an issue, but brand is THE issue in any consumer product. With that said, is the current price for AOL stock justified? I really don't know, but I sure don't want to bet against this company or the stock.