More Peeks At Aol's Plans


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DULLES. Va. (CBS.MW) - The board of AOL Time Warner meets here Thursday to hear what AOL CEO Jonathan Miller hath wrought: his plans to revive the America Online service's revenue, growth and morale.

Earlier this week, Miller canceled plans in progress for company holiday parties, telling employees in an e-mail it was "inappropriate to hold large and expensive parties." In their place, "employee socials" will be held Dec. 19.

Miller's plans for AOL (AOL: news, chart) are described as modest and realistic, according to the Los Angeles Times, citing a source. They include cost cutting, a focus on developing exclusive programming for broadband users, and the creation of premium-priced services that could give subscribers access to previews of movies and music downloads. The plan is expected to be made public at a meeting with investment analysts Dec. 3.

America Online has begun selling prepaid access cards through Western Union (FDC: news, chart) and Target (TGT: news, chart) retail outlets, according to Bloomberg news. Spokesman Jim Whitney was quoted saying Office Depot (ODP: news, chart) stores will also offer the cards next month, good for 8 hours of access at a price of $14.99. "America Online won't get millions of people using the prepaid service," said Charlene Li, an analyst at Forrester Research. "But they may get 200,000 or so. There are people out there who just want to go on once or twice a month."

Microsoft Net properties most popular

A comprehensive measurement of media properties says that Microsoft's (MSFT: news, chart) are tops online, barely. The Redmond, Wa. company's Web sites, instant messaging application, media players and Net applications attracted 92.619 million visitors and users last month, according to Nielsen/NetRatings (NTRT: news, chart). Properties owned by AOL Time Warner counted visits from 92.608 million.

However, when measuring the time spent using the properties, AOL trounced Microsoft. America Online properties won the average user's attention for 7 hours 52 minutes during October, while Microsoft's clocked 2 hours 27 minutes.

Sites and properties operated by Yahoo (YHOO: news, chart) were third most popular, with 79.78 million visitors, followed by the U.S. government with 38.3 million and Google with 27.6 million.

The researcher's report on the Digital Media Universe combines Web-based traffic with Internet applications and browser usage data. "Marketers can understand how consumers are using Instant Messengers and other applications that are fast becoming an important vehicle for advertising," said Maria Bhatia senior vice president for product marketing and business development.

Internet study shows Web bent but did not break Sept. 11

A study by the National Academy of Sciences on the stability of the Internet concluded it performed well under the strain of the events of Sept. 11. Damage was minimal and primarily attributable to failures in plain old telephone lines and systems used by Internet operations managers. "The Internet is completely safe from physical attack," said Craig Partridge, chairman of a committee that wrote the report.

He did suggest additional planning be done in the future to insure Internet news sites are prepared for large jumps in traffic in a crisis situation and that businesses evaluate their reliance on the Internet and technologies for communication.

You can listen to Internet Daily, too. Click to hear today's segment: Shania Twain's new CD, Up!, can be down(loaded). Call your local CBS station for broadcast times of Internet Daily on the Radio in your city.

You can also receive Internet Daily by e-mail. Click here to start the sign-up process. If you have a problem, e-mail me, mailto:fbarnako@marketwatch.com.

Source: CBS Marketwatch

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Hey Toxikk,

Been awhile since we tussled. :D

However, when measuring the time spent using the properties, AOL trounced Microsoft. America Online properties won the average user's attention for 7 hours 52 minutes during October, while Microsoft's clocked 2 hours 27 minutes.

This is true. There is no doubt that AOLers spend a TON of time connected to the service!

However, and this is a very big however...comparing usage patterns of a largely consumer-focused network with a mixed consumer & knowledge & information worker network is a bit unfair; If one is trying to claim superiority of the prior over the latter. While very popular, Microsoft.com visits are usually quite short compared to say AOL.com Email. When was the last time you spent a couple hours at Microsoft.com? :blink: Exactly.

So, that isn't really an apples to apples comparison, Toxikk. If you really want to do an apples to apples usage comparison, let's try AOL vs. MSN subscription:

Average Time Spent Online per subscriber:

Service Time

1.) AOL 15 hours and 4 minutes

2.) MSN 12 hours and 58 minutes

3.) CS2k 11 hours and 24 minutes

There we go. Not quite the "trouncing" you were hoping for I'm sure. :happy: Note: these figures are pre 8.0 for both AOL & MSN. I am very confident that MSN's numbers will skyrocket. I had MSN Explorer 6 & 7...while I liked the concept, and even used it occasionally...I would go with months-long periods of not even touching it. NOW, I've basically replaced IE with MSN 8, and generally keep the MSN Dashboard open at all times. (i.e. when I'm sleeping, so I wake up and see my personal data at a glance)

Edit: One additional thought. MSN internal shows that a staggering ~45% of AOL users also use an MSN site or service in some capacity. That calls into question just how valuable AOL's subscribers are if they also frequently use MSN. (becoming more aware of MSN, and what they offer. Is it any wonder that MSN regularly targets AOL users in their home-environment ad network?)

Edited by Trade Wind
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Hey isn't talking about the .com sites he is talking about being logged into the service.
If you read my reply, you'd have seen that the article Toxikk posted took both non-subscribers & subscribers into account when measuring time per person.
right dj... and i didnt write this, so this is not my opinion. i just wanted to post.

I recognize that, and I welcomed the opportunity to qualify the information included in the article. It went into no detail about the actual data it based opinions on. That said, you did highlight a particular section of the article you posted that you felt had impact. I directly addressed that issue, showing that on a service vs. service basis (not users who log onto Time or People Magazine, or visit Microsoft.com...but authenticate and signin on AOL.prop or MSN.cfauth) AOL's time per person lead is much much less than indicated when you add in all those visits to various ".com sites" as DJLunacy put it.

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