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Time Warner Properties May Only Be Available Through AOL
ryman writes "According to MSNBC, Time Warner is considering making its online content available without charge only to AOL subscribers. Sounds like a desperate move to redeem AOL, but this will have to take on a big toll on its online readership."
You could. Just sign up for the BYO access plan.
Well, they're owned by AOL-TW.
Secondly, they gotta offer direct PPP access as an alternative. No way I'm using their bloated client, no matter how many features they stuff into it.
They offer 'alternate' access to AOL. If you are an existing AOL dialup subscriber you can connect to AOL over any internet link or you can pay something like $10 a month for access minus the dialup ability. I am not a user so I do not know exactly what the difference is between coming in off ip or dialing directly in but a few of my relatives have used my Comcast cable to get into AOL with thier passwords. If they offer AOL special content and it was available for only $10 month it might be worth it for anyone with existing conectivity.
Bad boys rape our young girls but Violet gives willingly.
Check out BBC Americas. Quality news, and it's all subsidized by the British tax payers!
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
they refer to their access numbers as AOL.COM numbers - it is a PPP connection, and you can just dial in...
That what was all this school was for... to teach us how to solve our own problems. -- janeowit
But with all the TV ads I see touting MSN against AOL.......
Sorry, but I just look at MSNBC as a slightly skewed news source when it comes to things like this.
"You know why you do not see me styling wit my homies? Because I have no homies!!" -Mojo Jojo
TW does not make money off of online content (or not much, anyway). They make it off of print adv. Online versions are supplements to the ones in print. The print revenues pay for creating the content. The online ads pay for the infrastructure to display them.
Unless this hurts their print readership, this seems like a good idea.
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I am an expert in electricity. My father held the chair of applied electricity at the state prision.
I stopped reading CNN and other web sites exclusively when I found out about http://news.google.com ... it's sill in beta, but it's got links to all of the news I want to read.
CNN charges for some of its premium content. However, I was unaware of this because I am a Roadrunner customer and as such don't need to pay for the premium content. I recently found out about it when a co-worker tried to view the Michael Jackson video they had and was prompted to sign up.
mbbac
This has been addressed in the near past here in a different light, maybe about salon going under, or something.
If you aren't paying me for my content, I don't care if you are happy.
I would rather have only 5 paying readers than 5 million non-paying readers.
Numbers don't matter unless they are paying you for your service.
Business doesn't get much simpler than this. The elusive 2nd step to profit, is selling something.
I don't understand how people can continue to think like this, and it is a common thought process:
"It isn't a good idea for company A to start charging all of us non-paying, never-gonna-pay users, because we may never become paying customers."
If they never start charging, you wouldn't become paying customers either, so they aren't out anything by pissing you off.
I used to work at Time Inc., back in the day, so I have some insight about why this is happening.
AOLTW is structured like a loose collection of fiefdoms. Each magazine, each business unit is largely independent of each other. If one wants the content of another, they PAY for it, using real dollars.
This manifested itself in some supreme silliness. For example, at one point, Warner Bros. refused to license the Roadrunner character for use to promote the RoadRunner service. There was also a point where getting articles on line required typing in articles from the early print runs - because the magazines either wouldn't or couldn't provide the material in a friendly electronic format. This constant state of civil war pretty much doomed pathfinder.com, TW's first attempt at online hegemony.
This is likely happening because the AOL side is paying big to put the stuff online, but is not getting a return for it. The other option for them, likely, was to stop putting the magazines on line at all.
Anyone that works there, or used to, knows that AOLTW only succeeds in spite of themselves. Their frictionful culture will eventually kill them.