america online posts
FeedPosted Sep 26th 2007 3:40PM by Jon Ogg (RSS feed)
Filed under: Internet, Time Warner (TWX), Next Big Thing, Personal Finance, Technology
AOL founder Steve Case may have left
Time Warner Inc. (NYSE:
TWX) and AOL, but he isn't out of the web space entirely. His latest venture,
Revolution Money, promises to lower transaction fees on the Web. And he has an interesting new partner in the venture: his old friend, AOL.
Revolution Money, still in its pilot stage, will let users transfer money to individuals and merchants for free through its Revolution MoneyExchange service. AOL will be a launch partner, and will allow users and customers to make payments and fund transfers through its AOL instant messaging service, AIM, for free. It will also offer RevolutionCard, a credit card with an interchange fee of 0.5%, which is below the average of 1.9% for other cards.
The truth is that you and I will win from this venture because this will help drive fees down. The bad news is that as transaction fees move closer and closer to zero, so do the profit margins. Whether the margins are enough to keep these operations viable is an open question.
Posted Sep 19th 2007 12:24PM by Brian White (RSS feed)
Filed under: Consumer Experience, Competitive Strategy, Yahoo! (YHOO), Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), Time Warner (TWX)
Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE: HPQ) has inked a deal with Time Warner Inc.'s (NYSE: TWX) AOL unit to install AOL's web browser start page, toolbar and search on HP personal computers sold worldwide. This may not sound like a big deal, but it is, since the vast majority of computer users never change the default start pages that load when their Internet Explorer web browser starts up. Having AOL's search engine, which is powered by Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG), as the default is a biggie as well. HP, after all, sells more desktop and laptop computers than any company on the planet at this time.
AOL will use its custom "myAOL" homepage as the default website on all HP PCs, which will encourage new HP owners to use AOL's services like email, news, finance and weather. While some computer users complain of unwanted "bloatware" that ships on new PCs, the practice of providing new PC owners with default relationships to service providers such as AOL is likely to continue.
Now, what is unanswered here is how this will affect HP's existing relationship with internet portal Yahoo, Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) which has been in place for almost one year. Since HP did not make a single reference to this relationship, one must surmise that HP is dumping Yahoo! completely from its systems and replacing Yahoo!'s services with AOL's services. If that is the case, Yahoo! just earned a huge black eye and AOL came out very rosy. With HP competitor Dell, Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) using Google services as the default on its PCs, this leaves Yahoo! in a tough position without a top-tier PC partner.
Posted Aug 29th 2006 4:46PM by Brian White (RSS feed)
Filed under: Bad News, Products and Services, Consumer Experience, Internet, Competitive Strategy, Time Warner (TWX), Marketing and Advertising
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AOL, while making huge strides to change itself into a next-generation media company, must pay attention to details carefully these days. Sure, the
company acted swiftly in the light of customer data being released accidentally on the web, giving the company credibility on acting quickly -- an expectation that the net-connected world requires.
AOL is making a huge change in its business model, as it recently announced that it would give away its services for free (no more $23.90 monthly bills) and make up the difference in advertising revenue. This was a pretty big bet -- but a needed one. AOL missed the boat completely by not investing in broadband Internet access until it was too late and the partnerships it did form fell on deaf customer ears. As a result, the company has been losing millions of dial-up Internet customers every year, taking revenues and profits away from the bottom line of Time Warner, AOL's parent company.
So, has AOL's new "free access" software ready for prime-time?
StopBadware.org said Monday that it put the free version of AOL 9.0 on its "Badware Watch List" because it is bundled with several software programs -- including several media players, an AOL browser toolbar and an AOL "Deskbar" -- that are installed without proper disclosure or consent of users.
Now, all in all, this software is not
malware or
spyware -- but without disclosing (easy to find, as well) that all this extra baggage would be installed as well as the newer AOL software, another hiccup has occurred that AOL could have avoided if someone was awake at the switch. In this case, no publicity (proper disclosure) would have been better than negative publicity (hard-to-find disclosures). AOL -- you're making great progress, but smaller details can sometimes come back to haunt you, as in this case.
Posted Aug 8th 2006 2:01PM by Brian White (RSS feed)
Filed under: Deals, Products and Services, Consumer Experience, Internet, Competitive Strategy, Google (GOOG), Time Warner (TWX), Marketing and Advertising
With AOL having such a raft of announcements lately, what is the big strategy for the company? As it reinvents itself from a losing-proposition Internet access provider to a media and advertising company will advertising be able to make up for revenue generated by defecting customers over the long term? This is the billion-dollar question AOL execs must have had long staff meetings about recently. Yes, AOL will be able to survive by transforming itself now, but it
has to keep its customer eyeballs glued to its pages.
Advertising that is relevant and hopefully unobtrusive will accomplish this. Sound familiar? It's what I've said many times as the reasons for Google's advertising success where other large Internet companies have failed. Google's ad model of relevancy and presentation to the customer works -- it's a proven method. It also means something when Google invests $1 billion in AOL due to the lucrative advertising revenue it receives from AOL's customer base. That is one meaty customer base, in other words.
Google's ad platform success is one that competitors Yahoo! and Microsoft are still, to this day, trying to duplicate. If AOL can do this and
keep the lucrative customer and visitor base it has now with its existing (but falling) customer base -- and recruit new customers -- it stands a good chance of making the leap from irrelevant Internet access and content provider to ad-supported content and free service provider.
Brian White has worked in various executive positions in technology and telecommunications and now focuses on editing and writing.Posted Jul 20th 2006 8:45AM by Brian White (RSS feed)
Filed under: Before the Bell, Good news, Bad News, Products and Services, Industry, Internet, Competitive Strategy, Time Warner (TWX)
With many media companies like Disney, ABC and even Comcast having stock parties as of late (shares have risen in the last six months), why hasn't TWX joined in on the fun?
Time Warner shares have sunk 10 percent in the same period, according to CNNMoney. That fact has some institutional investors thinking like Carl Icahn a little. They wonder if Time Warner should be split up to increase intrinsic shareholder value. For now, there is a nervous patience in the air.
For now...With Time Warner in the midst of a stock buyback program and with the looming takeover of some assets from bankrupt Adelphia cable company, are prospects looking up? Time Warner is making moves, but the drag on its shares continues to be AOL, which has just now starting to face up to the fact that the dial-up Internet access biz is drying up like a desert in Africa. It's 2006, and that kind of Internet access, in my opinion, died almost five years ago.
AOL's mistake in not heading off that trend has mired it in issue after issue as it continues to re-invent itself. But as what? AOL may soon be giving away its access for free and making up the subscriber revenue difference with online advertising. That's a mighty risky move, but these are mighty risky times for AOL. It's a $2 billion bet that the company must make in my opinion to stop the slow bleeding of that arm of Time Warner. With the $1 billion investment recently from Google, AOL is lining up the efforts to make online advertising pay for, well, everything the company operates. Bold moves here, and I applaud them.
Posted May 31st 2006 1:20PM by Brian White (RSS feed)
Filed under: Rumors, Industry, Consumer Experience, Internet, Competitive Strategy, Google (GOOG), Time Warner (TWX)
According to this article at
ThisIsMoney.co.uk, when the
BBC starts paying attention to you, perhaps things are going well for what you are doing. With both AOL and Google in the cross hairs of the BBC (British Broadcasting Company), perhaps Europe is paying more attention to Internet firms that are in the midst of changing the world? I would say so. But how does the BBC plan on challenging Google and AOL -- and in what ways with what tools?
Without mentioning specifics, perhaps this is just brand
double-speak by the BBC chief. He is correct in that the BBC brand is probably the only legitimate challenger to most of the American-based firms that are shaping and morphing the way people and businesses communicate in milliseconds across the globe. But with established brands such as Google and AOL, the fight to capture pieces of the business both companies now enjoy will be far from an easy affair, even for a large conglomerate like the BBC.
Another nice piece of data here -- the BBC receives government subsidies that help it compete -- unfairly in many eyes -- with private companies. Even with that assistance, I highly doubt the BBC can easily challenge entrenched, global Internet companies like AOL and Google.
Posted Apr 28th 2006 11:47AM by Anne Metz (RSS feed)
Filed under: Press Releases, Launches, Industry, Television, Internet, Time Warner (TWX)
TNT's is about to drop yet another original drama series on us. It's called Saved, and AOL products will be integrated into the actual show.
Saved will air Mondays at 10 p.m. starting June 12. The series launches with a commercial-free
premiere episode, sponsored by Quizno's and Dodge.
"Our integration with both Saved and [the TNT series] The Closer -- an established hit -- allows us to tap into new
audiences and broaden our reach in a unique way," says Richard Taylor, senior vice president of brand marketing
for AOL. "We can showcase the value of AOL within the actual storyline, making it relevant to the characters'
lives."
According to the press release, Saved focuses on a young, hip, directionless slacker named Wyatt Cole.
Cole -- played by Tom Everett Scott (Boiler Room, That
Thing You Do) -- kicks around Portland, Oregon, trying to figure out what to do
with his life and struggling to live in the shadow of his high-achieving parents.
The hook? He's a paramedic.
The catchphrase? "By saving other people's lives, he will be able to save his own."
I can only imagine how this one is going to work...
SCENE: Burnside Bridge, Downtown Portland. Single-car auto accident. Cole is applying a
tourniquet.
Cole: "I can't deal with all these pressures. They've been with me ever since childhood. I
mean if only they'd placed PARENTAL CONTROLS on their expectations of me --"
Auto accident victim [suddenly coming back to consciousness]: "You mean like the
PARENTAL CONTROLS on AOL?!"
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