Finally acknowledging the inevitable changes that have been coming for a while, AOL has begun offering some of their services for free. Their goal is simple: survive on advertising revenue rather than on monthly fees paid by their subscribers. Their subscriber base has been steadily dropping for the last few years, and this is a bold move to change their business model. I don’t doubt that Google’s success with advertising revenue had a little something to do with this.
They will now offer free e-mail, access to their previously members-only content and security tools. Their parental controls for kids will not be made available for free until September, however. They will still offer a dial up service for those that want it, but being a provider will no longer be their chief goal.
In all, being owner of Time Warner, not only will all of AOL’s previously members-only content be available, but they could leverage the library of media that Time Warner owns to make it even more compelling. In addition, they can cut their sales and marketing staff since building their subscriber base is no longer the goal. But he best result of all of this will be no more of what seemed like an endless supply of AOL CD’s coming in my mailbox.
