Slashdot Mirror
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."
And I feel that most other Internet users, AOL or not, probably are thinking the same thing. Let's show them this.
But what do I know. I'm just looking for anonymous gay sex.
At the risk of being flammed to death, and no this isnt even a troll. I raise this point.
I'm a company, I've made some content and I only want people who are "members" and "customers" of my company to see this contaent..why cant I do this?
Sure it wil suck for the rest of us, but hell its their company...If you dont like it..buy stock.
"Enlightenment is your ego's biggest disappointment." --Yoginanda
I mean, do they expect to get more AOL subscribers? Who is going to get AOL just for TW content? Anyone?
Seems like they'd be limiting their paid audience if they only allowed AOL users to subscribe. This is, of course, assuming there is a big market for online subscriptions to People Magizine.
Correct me if I am wrong, but taking successful online publications and tying them to an struggling, unwanted online service seems so very... 1998. Doesn't it?
Edith Keeler Must Die
I really hope they do this because my primary competitors are AOLTIMEWARNER online publications. Mine will remain free.
Skiers and Riders -- http://www.snowjournal.com
How will this help TW sell more copies of EW, Time, or whatever? How will it help them sell more ads on the web-based versions?
Seems like robbing Peter to pay Paul. They may get a couple hundred thousand more AOL subscribers (though I doubt it), but they'll get fewer subscriptions to their magazines and fewer ads on their online properties.
It's owned by AOLTW, and is free. Does this mean I'll have to get my national news from MSNBC? This could really be a problem because AOLTW has their fingers in a lot of pots, so a lot of high-content sites could quickly disappear? Also, has anyone interviewed AOLTW's advertisers about this? They can't be too crazy about having limited viewership. I would imagine an AOL-only crowd would skew demographics heavily...
I went to college for this?...
Yeah, this sortof thing works if you have monopoly in the good bussiness and offer the bad bussiness for free with it. Like M$ did.
But here they have monopoly (not really but good enough) in the bad bussiness (AOL) and are trying to attach it to a good one with no monopoly (Time). Big mistake if you ask me...
Please, I hope they do. Take the boring old media off the internet. For that matter, withdraw AOL from the internet too. Make it a nice gula^H^H^H gated community like in the old days.
Send the spammers, squatters, lamers, MCSEs IP lawyers and the rest of the "cyberspace information superhighway" baggage back to AOL and quarantine it for the good of all.
Talk about camablizing TW for the sake of AOL.
If they really want to redeem make AOL an attractive choice, they should allow broadband AOLers to download TWs Tv shows and old movies and the like.
Of course they'd rather sit on their ass and wait for things like CDBPTPA or whatever to 'promote' broadband by making computers illegal so people won't steal their crap. Sheesh.
I do read CNN once in a while though, when people to link to it.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
The Internet is international. AOL is not. You do the math. They are effectively shutting out international users.
This won't work, because it will not be seen as AOL having extra features; it will be seen as Time-Warner lacking the feature of accessibility, and in the context of the Internet, users will always choose the most easily accessible source, and that means the one you don't have to sign up or pay for.
I for one welcome our new SCOviet Russian overlords to whom all our base are belong.
..where the prisoners inside are told the walls keep the barbarians out. And the "barbarians" don't care and build a better world outside the walls of the... garbage dump.
I don't subscribe to RMS's GNUtopian vision.
...it won't make a difference. After all, how many times have you seen someone here complain about the NYT free registration requirement to view articles? If people are complaining about free content I hardly think making it subscription-only will matter.
Actually, it's a big cost-saving measure. Yeah, that's it. By making all the TW magazines AOL subscription-access only, they'll be able to cut their bills for bandwidth and server equipment drastically.
Because NOBODY'S GOING TO FSCKING READ THEM ANYMORE!!!
They already charge for the archives on-line, which isn't a bad way to go. Do they really think that people are going to use AOL just to get to Time Magazine (or SI, or one of their others)? I suspect most would-be subscribers will, at most, subscribe to one of the print mags. Better that than a $23/month (or half that for the BYO plan) AOL subscription.
For the monthly price of AOL, I could subscribe to most of TW's print mags, including the truly useless ones like Business 2.0 - and get my Internet via the DSL account that I'm already happily using. I really can't see anyone switching to AOL, of all services, just to read the current issue of TW mags online.
But hey, ideas like this prove that crack is still affordable to the masses, because they're obviously using lots of it at AOLTW!
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
This step is the logical extension of that plan - count on the value in Time-Warner media properties to make AOL valuable as a middleman.
Of course, Time-Warner media properties are only as valuable as the number of people who consume them. This plan will survive for precisely as long as it takes people to figure out that (a) they're paying and AOL toll and (b) they don't actually have to pay it, because Time-Warner doesn't produce anything that can't be had elsewhere without paying a tax to subsidize AOL's misbegotten existence.
Of course, the media-consuming public can be slow on the uptake, so maybe this scheme will work after all.
OK,
- B
http://www.bradheintz.com/
- updated
The problem with the model is that as everyone moves to a pay-for-content model, you are dealing with a limited consumer resource: money. Consumers only have so much money that they are willing to spend on web-content, which we've seen is precious few. What makes Time-Warner so confident that their content is going to make everyone pony up cash to see it?
Until they come up with the online equivalent of "Friends", I don't see a lot of people coming.
This idea won't fly in the long run.
A few bucks for Slashdot here.
A few bucks for Linux Today there.
A few more bucks for Ars Technica.
Still more bucks for RealWorldTech.
Actually, I don't subscribe to any of those. I read them, and I feel somewhat guilty about not subscribing, but I see a problem here. There are too many people holding out a hand for a little bit of my money.
Currently I support two PBS stations and public radio. I also have one magazine subscription, Linux Journal, and a few more magazines come to my house.
In the current situation, web subscriptions would like to exceed my dead tree subscriptions, and I can't even carry them to the bathroom.
Maybe the subscription model is better than popups, but it's still Not There Yet. If I knew the answer I'd be rich, but maybe it looks like a single higher-priced 'web subscription wallet' that lets me get those services, pay one fee, and not feel like I'm getting nickeled and dimed all over the place.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
See Pascal for the way it should have been done.
Oh for crying out loud, please stick to Pascal if the intricacies of C are beyond your reach. You might also enjoy Visual Basic or HyperCard.
My prediction is they will watch their hits drop precipitously for a while and start backpedaling.
Ah, but you see, they don't measure success in hits. They measure it in revenue or profit. In fact, if it costs them more to serve a page to a non-customer then they get from advertising on the page, reducing the hit count might well be a good thing!
One nice thing about the downturned economy is a renewed dose of sensibility on the part of businesses. I still wish they'd think a little more long term, but learning that you can't eat or sleep in "mindshare" is at least a little reality check...
I think the only users that are still on AOL or similar services are from the baby boomer era and prior. The level of computer literacy we have today is unbelievable. Try to find a 10 year old kid today that doesn't know how to use a computer. As the current generation grows up and the AOL generation dies off you will see AOL start to fail even worse than it currently is.
A friend of mine teaches computer classes and calculus at the local high school and junior college. According to him, the students in his computer classes usually know far more than he does and are usually more (gasp) Linux and BSD savvy than he ever was. Looks like a trend to me....as us old farts step down a newer and more computer literate generation is stepping up....and they most definitely do not need AOL or the stigma attached to using it. This is nothing more than a company who's time has come and gone attempting to hold on to what little is left in their rapidly dwindling demographic market.
"The strong will do what they want, the weak will do what they must."
-Thucydides
You go right ahead. Go ahead and make people pay for your generic bland regurgitation of the AP news wire. And we'll keep getting that for free from a thousand other sources.
Really my commentary only applies to the TW case here. In general there's nothing wrong with the concept of charging for what you produce, but if you are going to charge, you'd better have something worth buying.
I happily pay for my Salon membership because they say a lot of things that aren't getting said other places and their articles are interesting. On the other hand, the news spit out by the likes of TW's sites is nothing original. I can go to Google news and get all of that content aggregated nicely for me so I can keep up to date. I seriously doubt anybody's going to find their content so compelling as to become AOL members to access it.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
Maybe I am missing something, but my cable modem ISP, Road Runner, is owned by Time Warner Cable. Does it seem odd to anyone else that I would be unable to browse content distributed by Road Runner's parent company over their own damn network?
If something about my statement is incorrect, please feel free to set me straight - I really am confused as to why TW would want to do that to their own customers, even if they are the same company as AOL now...