What to Do With AOL
When AOL and Time Warner merged, the planned synergy was confusing. Sure, customers could get access to broadband services, but that was the equivalent of handing Eve an apple. AOL’s strength was its simplicity for who I fondly refer to as, “the interactively challenged.” If you know anyone who has used any of following words (but not in jest): “internets,” “interweb,” “Earl” (that’s URL to you and I) and/or “The American Online,” then you know who I’m referring to.

The problem with this target market is that they are rarely challenged for long. Once a user understands the AOL interface, it’s not a far jump over the wall to the real Internet. For some reason this glaring problem didn’t appear to be glaring enough for anyone at AOL Time Warner until today.

Time Warner is now considering spinning off the more profitable cable from the sucking sound coming out of McLean. They also are considering major changes at their publishing unit.

It couldn’t come soon enough. Let’s face some harsh realities:

· The number of individuals who are new to the Internet is rapidly diminishing (obviously, this doesn’t include your drooling 1-year-old, but feel certain he/she will be introduced to Google pretty soon)

· Individuals who use AOL have the ability to easily migrate to the real Internet—they inevitably will and really won’t miss AOL

· AOL does not possess their own search algorithm or paid search advertising platform; instead, relying on Google for both

· AOL has consistently lost market share over the past year

How do you turn something like that around? The short answer is you can’t…at least not in the search space. However, AOL does have an opportunity to do what it does best…teach new technology. Specifically, the synergy between the Web and television.

Here are a couple of completely made-up, but potentially viable scenarios:

• AOL Time Warner remains intact, and allows TNT, TBS, TMC, CNN, etc. to be broadcast in real time through AOL. Banner ads and Google-powered search remain intact.
• Microsoft or IAC (aka Ask.com) or Yahoo buys AOL to increase an abysmal search share from “total crap” to “pretty crappy,” and then combines a TV element. BTW, Microsoft could do this very easily with their plans for LiveStation.

AOL has failed in providing customers with a reason to stay with them. This includes developing new technology that hasn’t been ripped off from a competitor, or something that drives new business from real web users.

However, AOL has historically done a commendable job helping individuals learn interactive technology. And that makes AOL a prime candidate to teach the world how TV and the Web will soon combine to become the most powerful medium the world will ever know.

I’m not ashamed to admit that AOL was my first online experience back in the early 1990s. It helped me understand keywords and usability. I have no plans to go back anytime soon.

What would it take for you to start using AOL again?

Jeremy | permalink | +marktd |