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
... is madness. What's needed is syndication: why can't I pay my ISP a few bucks a month for access to a package of properties of my choosing? TW's advertisers should revolt over this.
I mean, do they expect to get more AOL subscribers? Who is going to get AOL just for TW content? Anyone?
and another one that's doing poorly.
I know! I'll bind them together at the hip like siamese twins! That will make them both look and function so much better! Ya, that's the ticket!
Stupid marketing dweebs.
If you post it, they will read.
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.
They should start out by just making it ad free through AOL. Then move to allowing extra features through AOL (premium stories, free music streaming). Then finally move to exclusive access.
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.
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'm sure that their competitors will be happy to have me read their content.
What? Time Warner bought all their competition? Hmmmm...
This was long coming, since the announcement of the merger. Almost immediately we was a revival or the "AOL keyword" in addition to the URL in all Time-Warner owned media. Before that, the "AOL keyword" was nearly gone.
The recent announcement suggests that this has not worked, hence the need for more radical measures. If AOL has critical mass, they can pull it off and make people pay AOL fees just to download, say, Britney's latest CD, or cool Star Wars trailers. If they don't have enough critical mass, all they will achive is to bring down the once mighty TimeWarner online properties along with AOL.
So the real question is, does AOL have critical mass to carve out a proprietary section of the Web?
Not to use AOL.
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.
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.
This could actually be a good thing. Pay a premium for advertising-free premium content. It's not all that different from paying for premium television channels (HBO, Cinemax, etc.) on your cable or satellite system.
If they're smart, they'll also make this available to non-AOL users through the Netscape Network as well, so all you need is their "Screen Name Service" and a browser to sign on. Price this fairly -- say, $4.95 a month -- and they might garner a good number of users. It's actually working pretty well so far for Real Networks; why not expand things a bit?
With ad revenues for web sites dwindling rapidly, this is probably inevitable. And I think it's ok.
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
..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."
One of the real issues that may poke it's ugly head in all this is the value of TWAOL's content. How much is it worth? If you ask the executives, they probably can put a value on it. Is the value realistic? Maybe we will see.
I really think this is something that needs to happen, and it's about time. Content has a percieved value in old economy companies which is based on physical distribution mechanisms.
Right now the value of content is not known in my my mind. I don't think anyone else really knows either.
Just look at Salon.com. They, probably more than any other company, are in a battle to define the correct value of their content. At some point we need to progress beyond 1980's paradigms of content value in large media companies as well. Salon.com is in the thick of it as we are reading this. We see headlines almost weekly about their quest to break even, much less turn a profit. Salon has a problem that online content is their only product. AOLTW has other lines of business and markets to help keep them afloat. Maybe now it is AOL Time Warner's turn to test the waters and discover, or at least try to, the real value of their content.
I don't see this as a bad thing.
-Pete
Soccer Goal Plans
Check out BBC Americas. Quality news, and it's all subsidized by the British tax payers!
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
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
You've got bankruptcy!
Trolling is a art,
Isn't that an oxymoron?
t_t_b
I'm on PJ's "enemies" list! Are you?
It's more like, who is interested in Time Warner content enough to pay $40/mo for a specific ISP.
Joe {citizen|company} may risk several things by switching from one ISP to another:
What's this Submit thingy do?
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
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.
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 sounds like the days when AOL, Prodigy, and CompuServ were battling for who had the best proprietary systems and could milk $5/hr out of their poor customers with little/no alternatives. Of course now is the time when if I want info on a news story I do a google news search and get about a dozen or more free sources for any important story. Doomed to fail, guess the Time Warner guys got snookered by the internet bubble and pictures of stock options dancing in their heads.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
The greening of the net began years ago. Frankly, I can't see how sites like Mapquest, CNN.com, etc. can afford to keep giving away services for free. Face it guys, the Internet as an ad medium fell flat on it's face. Content costs money, and corporations are in business to make money, not give it away. In a way, the net hase become a big disappointment to me. Maybe I bought into the hype, I don't know. But one thing I do know is that I miss the net's good 'ol days. Unfortunately, they're gone....forever.
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.
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 it's times like this (when Corps get greedy/scared) when we all need to pay attention to what's going on. Look at a cat falling into a tub of water as its claws rear up in panic to grab a hold of anything it can, to try and stay out of the water. Naturally, the cat is going to hurt someone if it gets a hold of them. Naturally the cat is going to get wet because they are totally scatterbrained at the moment - without any sobriety or common sense to spare. (and no uncommon sense to spare either!)
/. if we could pull them away from whatever they are doing in their cubicle!
Big business is no different than that poor panicked kitty when the boardrooms start changing their tack, in an effort to leverage people into buying into their crap. Why would anyone in their right mind pay for a service when they could find the same info for free? Likely the same people who wear I'm with Stoopid T-shirts (or perhaps those standing NEXT to them!!).
Let some other sucker pay for news. And why should we rush to companies with cash in hand? They provide a service to make money and, like RIAA, they make all too much of it if you ask me, and they spend it all trying to influence courts and politics.
Another total insight is that any society is only as advanced as the time it takes to find a given fact, and you could rate any age of society where this same is true - that the time it takes to find out a fact and understand it is directly proportionate to the level of advancement of the given society in time (at this time). I could go really off the wall and say that the next logical step for human advancement is the abolishment of corporations and finance, since the very act of resource hogging is Neolithic and an impetus to human advancement! But to refine and restrain my argument, I will instead suggest that on a given trajectory, human finance is likely a cultural necessity and although future exploits be damned, eventually it will end and become replaced by either some other exploit or some unilateral benefit (unlikely given human nature).
Corporations wish to slow down the transfer of information because the people who are now in control of the world are mostly getting old themselves, or at the whim of those who are aging!
Put in stop-gaps so we can keep up! Add some more costs and measures to make 'em line up to hand them money for services we don't even provide! (CNN could post something, Time picks it up and the non-AOL users over at time have to pay? That's nonsense. And what about Reuter's/AP?!?)
What companies need to adopt now is a policy that allows them to save customers money and yet generate money at the same time. Give and take is essential for market growth; try selling that to a boardroom AND keep the evil twists out of the mix! Customer breaks have to be unilateral or they don't work out in the long run. Society is getting smarter. Give a bunch of stuff away for free, but charge for extra pampering / better bandwidth / services / and accessories. Or maybe don't charge?
I challenge some philanthropist to design a company that runs perfectly without charging anyone money for goods and service. (And at the same time refrain from cult or criminal status!!!) I bet if someone ever invented that company, they would be the next Ben Franklin because that company if entered into competition with other companies would likely crush all competition in existence today.
All it would take is fifty people who decided to adhere to certain principles of non-profit competition with the end goal being free provision via science, technology et al.
Shit guys, I'm sure we could find 50 of em here at
I already wrote to CNN.com and told them I would never EVER pay for their stupid video subscription. I could almost always see the videos somewhere else, and if I couldn't, who care? The news is what I care about...video is fluff at best.
If CNN.com goes away, boo-hoo. There's 100 other services out there that provide news for free, some without the capitalist slant. All these companies that are feeling the pinch of the slowing economy and the remains of the burst bubble break my heart. Cry me a river.
What nobody paid attention to back when the bubble was riding high was that surprise surprise, just because the Internet has arrived doesn't mean there's more consumers. The consumers just move from one product to another. It's akin to thermodynamics: demand cannot be created nor destroyed, only changed from one form of demand to another. Sites that don't provide anything new or remarkably different from everyone else are not going to survive.
Originality is what drives the best sites. Google is a shockingly good search engine...Yahoo and Amazon are very simple interfaces to many different types of content (stores, news, searching, auctions) and of course eBay is simply the de-facto standard for buying and selling items online. Provide something new and original, or stop whining.
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...
(If the two companies decide to split up in the future (as has been rumored), I'd reconsider. Until then, AOHell isn't getting any of my money. They're worse than Microsoft...at least Microsoft doesn't have a stranglehold on the media.)
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
AOL users are the target demographics for Internet users. My business does a lot of work in "Internet Marketing," primarily search engine marketing. When AOL switched to Google, we did a little dance. Our bread and butter customers are AOL users. I've run the numbers, and our AOL users are easily worth 2x-3x the Internet as a whole.
Let's be real, if I'm selling a mass market product, would I rather his "everyman" on AOL, not too tech savvy but willing to pay extra for things, or the Slashdot "everything should be free and I'll help you circumvent the New York Times free registration" crew? The largest pools of users are AOL users and college students. Which crew has more money to drop on luxury items?
Not only that, if the service is limited to AOL users & paying Time Warner users (say, through Netscape.com as the service), the ads are even more valuable. By limiting it to people that are paying for a premium service (and AOL is 20% more than most ISPs, and 100% more than the cheapest) or paying for content, I am limiting myself to people with disposable income.
I got a friend doing the struggling artist thing in New York. She was complaining that she thinks that the NYT should sell "sections" of their paper cheaper so she could just buy the sections she wants. She doesn't understand why they pass up selling to her. I tried to explain to her that advertisers aren't interested in people trying to save 50 cents on the paper...
Alex