Friday, October 14, 2005
AOL becomes a portal to profit
With Fewer Paying Up, AOL.com Shifts to Free - New York Times
America Online the first great online service is slowly running out of paying suscribers. So what's the solution? A metamorphosis before our very eyes from a paid suscription service to a free portal. The business pages have been full of discussions about who will buy AOL, several big players seem interested including Microsoft. Media concentration, mergers and acquisitions and the transformation of AOL into another company that sells eyeballs to advertisers. The business model for online success is free access to build a large following which can then be sold to marketers.
America Online the first great online service is slowly running out of paying suscribers. So what's the solution? A metamorphosis before our very eyes from a paid suscription service to a free portal. The business pages have been full of discussions about who will buy AOL, several big players seem interested including Microsoft. Media concentration, mergers and acquisitions and the transformation of AOL into another company that sells eyeballs to advertisers. The business model for online success is free access to build a large following which can then be sold to marketers.
