AOL owes its strong position in the mobile domain to its ability to provide seamless access to AIM buddy lists on handsets through an elegantly designed service and its strong relationships with mobile carriers. Its challenge is to demonstrate that it can use AIM as the foundation to engage users with a broader base of services, much as it is seeking to do on the desktop by opening access to its portal and e-mail services and linking these with AIM.
Quotes about aol (16 Quotes)
I think the support of the other team at AOL and everybody's really shared passion and belief about this and - saying that some day everybody was going to be on line.
Well I'm a longtime AOL subscriber and I love the whole thing. I'm an email junkie and I love the internet, though 7th Heaven doesn't give me much free time to surf these days.
We think the deal should be mostly positive for Time Warner, as it would offer AOL increased flexibility over the long term to grow its advertising revenue base, and monetize its branded content through broader exposure for AOL's vast stable of online properties, consistent with what we view as its well-articulated turnaround strategy.
We have great respect for his long record achievement -- as a co-founder of AOL to a valuable member of our board.
I think that any discussion between AOL and Hughes is about implementation of their marketing agreement.
I continue to have a special pride and passion for AOL, and I strongly believe that AOL - once the leading Internet company in the world - can return to its past greatness.
Left to their own devices, AOL will always put its own self interest ahead of the public interest.
We feel all the more confident in pursuing a more aggressive path to create value at AOL through both its subscription and advertising business initiatives.
We're starting to let AOL members know about this opportunity now to strongly encourage them to improve their online experience with a better, faster Internet connection. AOL is committed to offering our members the best high-speed experience - not just faster dial-up but true broadband from a cable or DSL connection. We've seen in recent market tests that our members respond very strongly to the ability to more simply combine what they have from AOL with what they want from a broadband connection, and now we're going to deliver it from coast to coast.
Because I do think - not just in building AOL - but just the world in which we live is a very confusing, rapidly changing world where technology has accelerated.
If you net out the impact of the end of long-term ad deals, 2003 will be, on an operating basis, an up year, ... We don't want to make light of disappointing numbers. But as to the question of has AOL bottomed out yet as a business, we think the answer is yes.
I think it took us nine years to get one million subscribers to AOL, and then in the next nine years we went from one million to 35 million.
Anything that impairs our ability to communicate with members is something we don't take lightly our members are likely to have a very negative reaction to this as well. If AOL actually pulls the trigger on this plan, a boycott would be our response.
Others say the deal could also raise flags over the combined AOL Time Warner's ability to limit access to Internet content. From the consumer point of view, there may be questions about whether you'll have to be an AOL subscriber to get Time magazine, ... That combination of media with the access is one through which you may be able to block access to your competitors' subscribers.
I think what's really pushing this is Microsoft's ability to see that it's long been playing cat and mouse with AIM and ICQ (another AOL instant messaging service). Microsoft needs to stake its presence in a big way.