Is AOL dead?

Is AOL dead?

An interesting article online at New York Times. AOL’s CEO Jonathan Miller is asking the higher-ups at Time Warner (who owns AOL) to halt almost all of AOL’s marketing (read: trying to get new AOL paid subscribers) and give price cuts to existing customers. And firing thousands of employees, of course. That is almost always a favored management tactic: after the managers of the company have run the company into the ground, they turn around and fire all the hard workers, while none at the top loose their job.

Is this, finally, the end of the AOL disc mailed to us every two weeks? One could only hope.

More importantly, is there any real worth left in the AOL brand? For the high-tech user, no. AOL is a joke, regulated to mostly ill-informed new computer users who don’t realize that AOL offers nothing for the money. Nothing you cannot get online, anyway, with either a cheaper dial-up account, or a faster, and more expensive, broadband one. Then again, I have seen DSL deals that cost less than AOL dial-up prices.

The plan Mr. Miller is looking to put in place would position AOL as a new Google, Yahoo, or MSN. In other words, an ad generated website.

Will it work? Under the plan, AOL would give away its software, as well as AOL.com email addresses. Does either have any value at this point in time? What does AOL software offer than cannot be had already online, free of charge? Does AOL have any premium content at all? And besides current users, why would any seasoned internet vet want an AOL email address?

AOL’s Music is nice, and free I do believe. I just watch a music video online free of charge. AOL radio sucks. It requires a Windows machine. Gee, thanks, AOL. I suppose as a Mac user, I simply won’t bother coming back anytime soon.

AOL has been wearing blinders for the last eight years when it comes to the internet. They have been regulated to a relic of the past, one fewer people will use as time goes on. Opening up AOL to everyone, free of charge, is the last step before closing the doors. And honestly, it probably is about time.