AOL Hopes It's Found A Way To Hang On
from the world-wide-wow? dept
I only caught a few minutes of the Oscar's on TV, but I did watch long enough to catch one of AOL's new commercials hyping up their broadband service, with the new catchphrase "Welcome to the World Wide Wow". It's no secret that AOL is having tremendous problems signing up customers for their broadband offering (despite the fact the same company owns a completely separate, and somewhat successful broadband offering in Road Runner). This new campaign is part of a $35 million effort to convince people to sign up for AOL Broadband, despite the fact it costs a lot more, and doesn't really offer any particular advantages. At least they've finally realized that putting their head in the sand and pretending broadband didn't exist wasn't going to work very well, long term. However, considering that the overall company (AOL-Time Warner) still seems to have a split personality on how to treat the internet, I wouldn't be surprised to see multiple strategy "shifts" over the next few years, as they realize that each half-hearted attempt to win over broadband users is failing.
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