Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Online Ad Deflation

I worked at AOL Time Warner starting in 2001, shortly after AOL had bought Time Warner using a bunch of paper called AOL common stock. We know how that turned out.

AOL actually grew its subscription base until around 2003 and it was very hard for anyone there to understand that the forces that allowed it to dominate in narrowband internet access would not let it do the same in broadband.

Anyway, when it became clear that subscription revenues would go away, the feeling was that a smaller AOL would emerge as an online-only ad-supported business.

Now that's becoming tough too.

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