AOL's Wobbly World Wide Wow

from the let's-try-this-again dept

We've been criticizing AOL's plans to focus on their "walled garden" plans of charging extra for various bits of content that really aren't worth it (and which can often be found elsewhere for free). Now, someone over at Forbes takes a look at the various pieces of AOL's new broadband strategy and points out why it's just not worth it. Signing up for broadband alone is cheaper and better. None of the "extra" services are that compelling - and since they each come at an additional price (with no discount for bundling) there's not really much incentive to sign up. As the writer says, the strategy is ruled by a spreadsheet and not marketing sense. This is a short-term view of a long-term issue, and it doesn't look like this strategy is going to go very far - but AOL is unlikely to realize that until it's way too late (as it might be already).