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To: Tie Zeng who wrote (3755)	5/1/1998 5:34:00 AM
From: zebraspot	Respond to of 164684

AOL is king for how long? They are the training wheels of the internet. In 5 years just about everyone will be riding real bikes. // Re: MCD comparisons above. McDonalds sells hamburgers, not books. Books all taste the same. // Competition is coming at everyone from everywhere: Planet Entertainment Latest to Plan Music Sales Through a New Web Site Dow Jones Newswires MIDDLETOWN, N.J. -- Planet Entertainment Corp. Thursday announced a move to aggressively market its catalog of music titles over the Web. Planet Entertainment hired Atlantic Coast Digital Concepts to expand its Web site to sell recording via the Internet. Unlike bookselling over the Internet, where Amazon.com Inc. has a huge lead, the Web marketplace for music has become increasingly competitive. Planet enters a universe already crowded with such players as N2K Inc., which operates the Music Boulevard site and CDNow Inc. And K-Tel International Inc., which built its name hawking vinyl compilations on TV, recently announced plans to sell a catalog of over 250,000 titles on the Internet. By comparison, Planet owns a proprietary music catalog of over 15,000 titles and has the rights to market an additional 100,000 commercially available titles. Meanwhile, traditional music retailers like Tower Records and Camelot Music are pondering on-line ventures. Mail-order retailer Columbia House and entertainment giants Virgin Records and BMG Entertainment also are looking to the Web. Even Amazon soon will be a competitor, as it plans to branch out into music sales. A plus for Planet is its proprietary catalog of master recordings including such artists as Fats Domino, Gladys Knight & The Pips, Ike & Tina Turner, Kenny Rogers, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, B.B. King, Herbie Hancock, Charley Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis and Luciano Pavarotti.

To: Tie Zeng who wrote (3755)	5/1/1998 8:03:00 AM
From: Winter	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 164684

>>I want to make my original point clear.<< I think I understand what you are saying about AOL, basically anybody can setup a local ISP cheap and then try to grow it. In that sense barriers to entry for the ISP business are low. However if you are using AOL as an example of why the largest/older company has an overwhelming advantage over newer startups in a given section, then I disagree. My ISP which is regional provides much better service than AOL at half the price. Personally I think AOL will not end up being the dominant ISP in the future as their service really sucks and eventually people will get smart and realize this. And switching ISP's is more traumatic than switching net booksellers. Similarly I don't think the barriers to entry to compete with Amazon are that high. Sure they have the lead with market recognition now but they are facing competition from places other than little startups - the big boys of the retail bookselling world are joining the fray and they bring a lot of established brand recognition with them (B&N). I don't think this spells the end of Amazon but I think the rosy growth and profit scenarios predicted will not come to pass as Amazon becomes one of many internet retailers who sells books.