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."

I will not miss them.

[Faggot]

And I feel that most other Internet users, AOL or not, probably are thinking the same thing. Let's show them this.

Re:I will not miss them.

[AKnightCowboy]

Hmm, I wonder if this is why I got a message about needing to be registered to view a video of Michael Jackson hanging his baby over the ledge last week on CNN. I said "Ho hum" and went to foxnews.com instead where it was readily available. There's a beautiful thing about the Internet: choice.

Re:I will not miss them.

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Frankly, this "content" is bland McContent. You want the definition of "lowest common denominator" - look at TW or Fox. Where is real news and commentary? There is little to find in any mainstream U.S. outlet. The quality of "analysis" is largely mere opinion.

Stories unreported in the U.S., including about internal matters are better found from outlets in India, U.K., Germany and Israel.

You know, people who can find Iraq on a map! ;-)

Why shouldnt they

[Hunts]

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.

Re:Why shouldnt they

[scenic]

There's no reason you "can't" do this. But, I question whether it's a good idea, and in the best interests of your general readership.

Personally, they should do it. It might save more interesting online news sources like Salon. :)

sujal

Re:Why shouldnt they

[Oculus Habent]

If the online readership of their publications requires no money (most online versions of magazines/papers don't) then restricting the service to customers ensures that they have made some money off the viewers.

Hopefully they will change their mind, but I don't expect the free content to be free forever.

A single, low flat fee for access to most or all of their content would be nice. Say, $2-$10/mo.

A single, low flat fee for access

[dpilot]

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.

Re:Why shouldnt they

[analog_line]

The only thing that will save Salon is if more people subscribe to their service, and I don't see that happening any time soon.

Re:Why shouldnt they

[Hunts]

Oh I agree.

I dont thinks probably the best business plan ever. An additional charge rate would be better.

Something along the lines of $10 a month for AOL users. $15 a month for non-members.

But the company has a right to only allow its customers to view its content.. thats business..thats capitalism

Re:Why shouldnt they

[ACNeal]

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.

Re:Why shouldnt they

[Anonymous Coward]

AOLTW's responsibility is to their stock holders. A move like this would be extraordinarily detrimental to their stockholders, and this is obvious to anyone that has half a brain. People don't swap to AOL, because if they've taken the 15 minutes it actually takes to learn how to configure TCP/IP in Windows, they don't need the AOL software anymore. Since people don't swap to AOL anyway, they certainly aren't going to swap just for some specialized content.

In summation, people don't swap to AOL anyway, so they certainly aren't going to just for some specialized content.

Re:Why shouldnt they

[Exedore]

I think specialized is the key word here. People might subscribe to a pay service that offers truly specialized content that's hard to find elsewhere and provides a sufficient amount of value.

The content provided by Time, People, and Teen People is neither difficult to find elsewhere nor particularly valuable.

Re:Why shouldnt they

[raretek]

With the media, the name of the game is eyeballs. The more eyeballs you have, the more you can charge for advertising revenue. If you begin keeping people from your content, they will simply go elsewhere, and thus you will experience a lower demand for your advertising services. I seriously doubt anyone, beyond a few oddballs, are going to subscribe to AOL just to get access to a particular media outlet, especially one as commerical as that.

As far as I'm concerned, I hope they do do it. This is one company I have no warm fuzzy feelings for, so let them shoot themselves in the foot.

Re:Why shouldnt they

[Ezubaric]

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.

Re:Why shouldnt they

[SethJohnson]

The actual name of the game is "which eyeballs". Ad targetting is where profit is made for content producers. Per-impression charges rise dramatically when you can tie the ad to a particular demograph.

Time Warner is positioned to really tie those impressions. Through intelligent proxy-mining, when an AOL user visits Time Magazine online, they'll already know what other websites the user frequents. They'll know if the user has been shopping for digital cameras on Ebay or performing searches on Google for "skateboarding". As the user accesses the Time page, the user will be greeted by targeted ads for digital cameras @ buy.com or the Tony Hawk Pro Skater video game on PS2.

Sure, privacy enthusiasts would go nuts about such tracking taking place. But wouldn't it be a nicer alternative to the popup hell suffered by IE users? Or how about an acceptable salvation for sites like Salon who would otherwise go bankrupt?

Re:Why shouldnt they

[raretek]

"The actual name of the game is "which eyeballs". Ad targetting is where profit is made for content producers. Per-impression charges rise dramatically when you can tie the ad to a particular demograph."

Actually, I think "which eyeballs" would be a play in the game of eyeballs. That would depend, and I'll admit my ignorance here, on whether it's more important to have 2 million impressions in general, or have 2 thousand whose demographics you thoroughly understand.

I guess that's probably the question their asking themselves. I hope they do it as I'm pretty sure I can see what will happen. "Tie two birds together, and though they have four wings, they still can not fly." :)

Re:Why shouldnt they

[kitzilla]

Eyeballs are meaningless if you can't sell them.

The problem with the old Internet business plan--get lots of eyeballs and turn a profit showing them ads--is that traditional online advertising is not effective (at least in the minds of many advertisers).Not even mighty Yahoo was able to make the portal model work. They had to move towards pay services, and seem glad they did.

Exclusive TW content will help AOL. THEIR business model as a dialup ISP is coming to an end, and they must find content people will pay for.

Would someone subscribe to AOL just for a TW read? Really, that depends on how good the content might be. Salon demonstrated--too little, too late--that people will pony up bucks for compelling online subscriptions. The onus is on TW to produce great product.

What TW will do for AOL is improve the overall value of the service. If AOL is to survive, they'll need LOTS of great reasons for people to subscribe--exclusive stuff you can't find elsewhere. This is a step in that direction.

You know, I actually like AOL these days. They've underwritten Mozilla. They developed a top-shelf client for Mac OS X. They irritate Microsoft. And I can always find someone to chat with if I'm sleepless at 2am.

Good luck to 'em.

Re:Why shouldnt they

[mugnyte]

Most of the smart folks here will comment about Good Business Practices. As a concept, this one is flawed: AOL's membership is dwindling, and it's ability to enticing new users is limited as the general internet is really the goal for a growing number of people.

SO, this obviously looks like a piggy-back maneuver, not a public release of content. What everyone here already knows is that once digital, information leaks everywhere. Anything resembling a fence around it is surely to be a PITA to manage.

Example: I have AOL on broadband. I grab a movie and put it in the P2P until I see it's been downloaded a dozen times. Then I remove it from my library and try again. I'm one of 100 people doing this every week, for a few months. Hooray, useless content everywhere, then AOL's content pipe is shut down and TW is angry. End of story.

Re:Why shouldnt they

[nanojath]

I don't think there is any reason you should get flamed to death - but it is a good example of why (whichever side you happen to agree with)we used to attempt to impose a wall between those who generated content and those who delivered content. The idea was that mass-media forms of communication are so powerful that you want to avoid too much of that power being concentrated in a single, self-interested entity. I'm worried that we're getting to the point when the up-and-coming media-consuming audience doesn't even realize that this was ever the case.

Of course, what you usually worry about in that equation is what is going to get forced down your throat rather than what you will be excluded from seeing... and you raise a good point, I mean, nobody is complaining that they can't pull down HBO on network Teevee, so more than an issue of rights, it's just a matter of whether it's smart. There is no content on the Internet that would induce me to become an AOL user, because AOL is stoopid access for people who are either too inept or too lazy to spend the fifteen minutes figuring out how to DIY with a browser and an ISP. I suspect there are plenty like me out there. My prediction is they will watch their hits drop precipitously for a while and start backpedaling.

Ah, but you use the wrong measure...

[Jerf]

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...

Re:Why shouldnt they

[beaverfever]

you are correct - there is no reason why they can't do something like that, and it's not like this is the first time something like this has happened. Ever notice which studios most of the movies on turner classic originate from? just one example.

this is simply the way business works - as usual a chunk of the populace demonstrates their ignorance of how the precious US-style market-driven economy (read: the world around them they face every day) works by showing outrage over a practice that's perfectly normal and always has been.

did I rant a bit for a moment there? sorry about that old chum.

Re:Why shouldnt they

[stinky wizzleteats]

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?

Well, I'm certainly no fan of CNN, and wouldn't mind a bit if its web presence evaporated as a result of this foolishness. That having been said...

As a company, you can do whatever you want under the law. If you start a company under the pretense that you are providing "free" (cnn.com had a ton of ads the last time I went there) news content on the Internet, develop a huge readership, and then start charging for the service (through AOL membership or otherwise), nothing is legally wrong with that.

However, don't be surprised if the rest of the world thinks you are a flaming scumbag for doing so. The last time I checked, my right to think that, say that, and gather a group together to discuss it were constitutionally protected.

Tying sites to a particular online service...

[Anonymous Coward]

... 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.

Re:Tying sites to a particular online service...

[anthony_dipierro]

You could. Just sign up for the BYO access plan.

What's the point?

[metatruk]

I mean, do they expect to get more AOL subscribers? Who is going to get AOL just for TW content? Anyone?

Re:What's the point?

[Reality Master 101]

Who is going to get AOL just for TW content? Anyone?

At the risk of sounding obvious, the answer to "who" is anyone who is interested in TW content. If you have someone who likes People magazine, then they might sign up for that.

That's like asking, "who is going to pay for a magazine subscription". Anyone who likes that magazine.

Risks

[mmol_6453]

Need to limit your search results down a bit.

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:

• Connectivity speed -- Maybe they're accustomed to a T1, or they work at a major ISP themselves. Then again, maybe thier favorite sites lie electronically closer to them with their current ISP than with AOL/TW. At one job, I'm seven or eight hops from Slashdot. At my other job, I'm thirty hops away.
• Connectivity predictability -- Maybe they already know the reliability of their current connection, and don't want to jump into an unknown situation.
• ISP relations -- Maybe they know the customer service reps personally, or maybe they have a dedicated service representative who sees to it they get good service.

Re:What's the point?

[astrashe]

I don't know if anyone would buy AOL just for Time/Warner content, but it does sweeten the pot for some people.

The people that I know who are on AOL are there for stuff that's not available on the net at large -- chatrooms, the parental controls on IMs that allow kids to chat with their friends, without worrying about predators, etc.

I know parents who buy AOL even though they have broadband and home networks, for just this reason.

This move would just make AOL that much nicer for the people who subscribe. By itself, it's not enough to swing anyone. But when you add it to the pile of AOL features that people like, it contributes to the cumulative effect.

Since online readers of Time or People don't do the company much good anyway, it seems like a good move to me.

I could see them doing something similar with online movies in the future -- bringing out stuff first for AOL customers, or whatever.

Re:What's the point?

[Oculus Habent]

Let's take a look at the business points...

• Current Internet population pays nothing for the content - if they lose viewers, they have only lost ad revenue.
• Reduction of traffic means savings in maintenance, bandwidth, servers, etc. (may make up for ad revenue)
• All viewers will be guaranteed customers of Time Warner - they must have paid TW sometime.
• Increase in AOL members, however small, will improve income to the company, also providing them with more ad revenue...

If you were AOL wouldn't thie be beginning to look better?

Re:What's the point?

[quintessent]

I don't know how many years it's been since I looked at any Time Warner publication online. Oh, how I'll miss it.

uh, so what?

[tps12]

Does anyone look at corporate websites anymore? The only national company whose site I ever look at is Microsoft, and that's only for MSDN stuff and security patches. Time Warner? Please. If I need to see what time Will and Grace is on, I can check the paper.

Re:uh, so what?

[acm]

a lot of people read CNN [cnn.com] online. I do occasionally, but I could certainly live without it.

Re:uh, so what?

[scotch]

Microsoft ... MSDN ... "Will and Grace" ...? Surely you troll.

Re:uh, so what?

[scotch]

1. You're spot on with "Will & Grace" - inane drivel.
2. Lighten up
3. Log in
4. You are welcome

People dont need thier hand held anymore...

[Havoc'ing]

its about the only thing that made AOL popular when the net first emerged. this is just a last ditch effort, shoot the horse already.

Hmmm, I got one business that's doing well...

[jlowery]

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.

Re:Hmmm, I got one business that's doing well...

[nicuss]

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...

Other purcahse options?

[joemc79]

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.

Two things...

[anthony_dipierro]

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.

Re:Two things...

[selectspec]

One incentive to making it ad free would be that since the viewership is limited to AOL, the ad revenues would be less.

You're nuts, AOL-only 2x-3x value

[alexhmit01]

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

Re:Two things...

[nolife]

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.

Re:Two things...

[anthony_dipierro]

Yeah, but they're not really ready for that yet. They are primarily an ISP, not a content provider. If I'm going to pay them, I want them to be my ISP. I just don't want to run their stupid client.

Whatever though, the future is broadband, and it's getting pretty close to "too late" to come up with innovations for dialup customers.

Re:Two things...

[Oculus Habent]

they refer to their access numbers as AOL.COM numbers - it is a PPP connection, and you can just dial in...

De ja doom!

[zuggy]

This smacks of other brillaint ideas like MSN's exclusive access to Viacom's Star Trek web site a few years back. I guess the target demographic for their magazines are people unable to use the internet. Maybe it should be aOL tIME wARNER?

This is the new management?

[kindbud]

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?

Re:This is the new management?

[Oculus Habent]

How are you gauging "successful online publication"? Are they making a profit from their ads? Can it be shown that the free service increases readership of the printed publications?

This is an early warning of Things To Come. As the economy stays in the doldrums, we will see more free/ad-driven services online either dry-up or turn to subscriptions.

It happened here at slashdot [slashdot.org], it happened at User Friendly [userfriendly.org]. It's happening.

There is freedom of information, but that information won't be available for free...

Re:This is the new management?

[_ph1ux_]

It didnt work for VA either....

AWESOME!

[cr@ckwhore]

I really hope they do this because my primary competitors are AOLTIMEWARNER online publications. Mine will remain free.

That's fine

[fobbman]

I'm sure that their competitors will be happy to have me read their content.

What? Time Warner bought all their competition? Hmmmm...

Proprietary content

[Alomex]

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?

OT: Your Sig

[scotch]

Are you complaining about that behavior of C? Consider the alternative, if you are.

Re:OT: Your Sig

[Alomex]

Are you complaining about that behavior of C? Consider the alternative, if you are.

If you think C integer/float arithmetic rules make any sense, I'll give you 1/2 million dollars, no question asked.

off topic

[poot_rootbeer]

Arithmetic according to C: float x = 3.14159; int y = 1/2 * x; Value of y? zero.

Well, duh.

Why would you try to express pi/2 as an integer, anyway?

Reason #452

[ianjk]

Not to use AOL.

Counterproductive?

[badasscat]

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.

Re:Counterproductive?

[RollingThunder]

People who had been willing to buy the paper copies, but stopped since the content was online for free, will resume buying paper copies. Not all, but still at a presumably higher amount of $$$ than they lose from the ads on the free stuff.

Those who eschew paper but still are willing to pay, will get the information electronically, again presumably making AOLTW more money via subscription fees than they are losing from their lost ad impressions.

They don't care about the ads anymore. The point is they want to sell the content, not the eyeballs. Frankly, I prefer that. When you're selling the content, you tend to make it a higher quality than when you're giving it away, IMO.

I don't see how you can conclude they'd get -less- subscriptions, either. The article contends the free content online was costing them subscriptions, not gaining them.

Re:Counterproductive?

[Jason Earl]

The third alternative, of course, is that people will simply give up on AOL-TW information altogether and start getting their news from someone else. Frankly I think that this is much more likely than a mass migration back to print subscriptions or towards new AOL subscriptions.

The problem with selling content over the Internet is that the barrier to entry is so low that there will always be folks that are happy to undercut your prices.

Redemption for the merger....

[supabeast!]

Perhaps the AOL/TW execs are trying to redeem themselves for ever merging to begin with. AOL users will be much more likely to hang around if only AOL can offer things like CNN.com and rollingstone.com.

It also takes something away from MSN users, who already pay more than other generic ISP clients, and only get extra advertisements compared to the extra "features" of AOL.

Topic is misleading

[Henry V .009]

It doesn't matter whether or not they lose readers. It matters whether or not they make more money. Will the cash earned by drawing more customers to AOL outweigh the cash lost through advertising?

The sad thing is that they aren't talking about a lot of money either way. I told them that the merger was a stupid idea for Time-Warner. Anyone who actually thought it through knew the same. Time-Warner traded a profitable business for monopoly money.

Re:Topic is misleading

[raretek]

"It doesn't matter whether or not they lose readers. It matters whether or not they make more money."

Um, when a media company loses readers or consumers of that media, that company will lose money, not to mention relevance, and power.

You are right, that *IF* they can get enough AOL subscribers to make up for their lost advertising revenue, then it might be worth it, but that seems like betting on a long shot. Anyone going to give up their DSL line to subscribe to AOL? Anyone going to pay an extra monthly fee to use AOL over their DSL lines, just to get access to their content? I'm asking this of slashdot readers, would anyone out there actually do this?

What about cnn.com?

[osxuser-02]

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...

Well, there's the BBC

[autopr0n]

Check out BBC Americas [bbc.co.uk]. Quality news, and it's all subsidized by the British tax payers!

news.google.com

[jamesoutlaw]

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.

Don't let the door hit you in the a55...

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Wow...

[autopr0n]

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.

WHAT?!?

[kevcol]

No more free 'People' or 'Entertainment Weekly' online? Heavens- my life will be incomplete!!

The Internet is international

[LX.onesizebigger]

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.

Re:The Internet is international

[Christianfreak]

This isn't true. I didn't check the links but a quick search of Google [google.com] shows that AOL does have at least some international access.

The people they are shutting out are the real Internet users who wouldn't use AOL if they were paid to. This is a horrible idea, I'm glad I don't own their stock... if I did I'd be selling it now.

Re:The Internet is international

[anonymous loser]

That's funny, I know plenty of people who use AOL because they have local dialups all over the world, and sell local services in many countries besides the US. I have friends in Japan, for example, who subscribe to AOL Japan.

The only other company I know of that has local dialups all over the world is AT&T Global Network which is the one I use, because I don't want to risk installing AOL on my machine even though they have much better coverage.

p.s. there are foreign-language versions of TW's popular magazines like Time, etc. So, the argument that the print magazines are US-only is not true.

Advertisement free?

[IGnatius T Foobar]

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 [netscape.com] 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.

Re:Advertisement free?

[MeNeXT]

Very GOOD thing...

Hopefully ALL these media giants come up with these great ideas and maybe we'll get back the internet we once had...

As for add revenues dwindeling...where do you get this?

SPAM continues to grow, therefore I would say the buisness model has not evolved with the times. Ever notice how the spammers complain that their revenue continues to shrink but the spam keeps comming. They either must be loooooosing a lot of money or somebody is pulling your leg.

Ah, the walled garden...

[Paul Neubauer]

..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.

Does roadrunner count?

[techstar25]

So what about TW's RoadRunner broadband customers? Do we get access as well? I've used RR for years now and I'm happy with the service.

If slashdot is any indication...

[Call Me Black Cloud]

...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.

Flashback!

[Saint Aardvark]

Anyone else here reminded of CompuServe? Or GE? Or Prodigy?

News Flash!

[Conare]

One big media conglomerate [msnbc.com] recently published a negative article [msnbc.com] about its biggest competitor [aol.com]. C'mon people, not only are news organizations not news, but this is just blatant propaganda. The really ironic part is MSnbc printing this. Like their company has never done anything to exclude non-paying customers. Ugh. Please.

This isn't to help Time and People

[the_skywise]

This is to help AOL. Making Time and People exclusive to AOL allows AOL to up its ad billing rates SYSTEM wide.

Business-wise, online Time and People are practically worthless to TimeWarner because neither is bringing in any viable ad revenue.

Moving them under AOL, increases AOL's ad value AND restricts free subsriber online access which can only mean an INCREASE in paper subscribtions.

Or a win-win...

On paper...

The merger's last gasp at "synergy"

[analog_line]

This was pretty much the entire idea behind AOL buying Time Warner in the first place. This is probably a last ditch effort to save the merger before Time Warner sells off the AOL portion of it's business. Trying to salvage something from a whole lot of wasted money, is what it is.

CNN.com

[ThrasherTT]

I currently read CNN.com daily. I haven't seen a video on CNN.com since they started charging for it. If they make it AOL/subscription only, I'll stop reading it and go elsewhere for news. If every reputable internet news outlet starts charging, I'll buy a little clock radio and listen to NPR or local news radio instead. The internet is convenient for VERY getting news, but when the advertising models don't work, companies lose money... and face it, some one has to be paid actual money to make this stuff available. Since radio advertisement (apparently) works, radio news will always be around. Sure its not as convenient, but its "free", and "free" goes a long way in my book.

Time Warner goes bankrupt to save AOL?

[defile]

So Time Warner might restrict their content to AOL members only?

In other words, Time Warner is going to restrict their userbase to try to increase their sucking AOL member base?

Hmm. Worst case scenario: I hit a URL to a media congolomerate site that I can't access because I'm not and have never been an AOL member. I visit a competitor site instead.

Best case scenario: Time Warner goes bankrupt trying to save AOL, which also goes bankrupt.

Works for me.

Oh yeah, that's brilliant...

[jht]

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!

Value of content?

[peterdaly]

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

Guess I'll just have to wait...

[TheSHAD0W]

...until someone pastes the whole story into a Slashdot entry. Oh joy.

Okay, I'm sure to get modded down for this...

[DwarfGoanna]

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.

bah..

[grub]

You've got bankruptcy!

"Time Warner" and...

[talks_to_birds]

..."Content" in the same sentence?

Isn't that an oxymoron?

t_t_b

Yeah, right

[pvera]

They have too much traffic to think about doing something so stupid. I have kept cnn as my home page for as long as I have been online but I will not pay AOL to access it, since I already pay a hell of a lot of money for cable TV. I guess I will have to switch to Google News and Washingtonpost.com until THEY decide to do something as retarded.

Yeah right

[sulli]

If they pull CNN.com they'll just hasten the death of CNN at the hand of Fox.

Score one...

[theonetruekeebler]

...for Fox news [foxnews.com]. I had a brief and bizarre encounter using CNN.com [cnn.com] from work: it wanted me to register as a Netscape user. I restarted my browser and the problem went away.

Not especially bright, but not surprising either

[RareHeintz]

The only reason AOL bought Time-Warner in the first place was to lock in what they knew to be an insanely inflated stock value - that is to say, they knew their own company had very limited value, so they went out and swallowed another company with greater value, hoping that when the bubble burst, the company that wasn't worthless would keep the natural sinker afloat.

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

Monopoly behavior

[rikkards]

Wouldn't this be considered a monopolistic behavior where they are using their power in an abusive way?

The 1980's are back again

[Torgo's Pizza]

Doesn't this just smack of the Pay-BBS's of yesteryear? Where Compuserve reigned king and you had to pay a fee just to access all their content. The parallels are striking. Ma Bell becomes your ISP. The Pay-BBS is the same as these Pay-Content sites.

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.

Return to the bad old days?

[afidel]

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.

The greening of the net....

[Newer Guy]

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.

Times like this.

[dolo666]

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!)

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 /. if we could pull them away from whatever they are doing in their cubicle!

Fat Bloody Chnce

[Headius]

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.

But what about Road Runner?

[Hrothgar The Great]

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...

And this affects me...how?

[ncc74656]

Since AOHell acquired Time Warner, I've cut out everything distributed under the combined company's name. CNN, TBS, etc. are deselected from "channels I watch" on my TiVo. (CNN already was, anyway...who needs CNN when you have Fox News Channel? Besides, Ted Turner is evil [mediaresearch.org].) I don't watch their movies anymore (could be painful when the Matrix sequel comes along, but I haven't missed anything else). I don't click the links to CNN, Time, etc. that get posted here and elsewhere. They could go out of business tomorrow and it wouldn't affect anything that I read or watch.

(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.)

Re:Anonymous Proxy Anyone?

[Christianfreak]

An AOL user? ... setup a PROXY? ... *laughing hystarically*

(I tried to put the actual laughing but the lame lameness filter couldn't figure that out.)