Brian Cicero
1. Early Adoption
2. Product distribution
3. Premiums/Exclusive content
4. Adaptation
5. Finding a way though its faults
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1. Early Adoption
To fully understand how far back AOL's reach goes, one has to consider this: The first use for what would become AOL was a project called Control Video Corporation, a system to connect Atari 2600s . Granted, this, and other iterations of CVC’s video game connectivity project were ultimate failures, they set the stage for America Online 1.0 in 1989. In 1989, if a person wanted to sign online, they ultimately had one option: AOL. And although there was not a multitude of people signing on in the late 80s, AOL had a near monopoly on all new subscribers and was able to establish itself before other companies could come on the scene.
2. Product Distribution
AOL’s strategy for product distribution may be considered by some to be the annoyance of the century, but in business sense, especially in the 1990s, it was genius. I guarantee that every single person who will read this entry has personally or has parents who received an AOL CD (or floppy disk) in the mail. Before the era of Google Adsense and Phishing, where a thousand products can be electronically “shipped” to millions of customers in the blink of an eye, AOL saturated the potential market of hundreds of millions of consumers with a quick and simple way to be a part of the ballooning techno-world.
3. Premiums/Exclusive Content
“1000 Free Minutes!” The battle cry of the AOL snail mail marketing campaign. All of the aforementioned floppy disks and CDs came with the promise of free AOL time, just for signing up. Excited customers would install AOL just to “try it out”, and end up becoming a paying subscribing customer for years to come. AOL certainly was not the first company to use premiums and has not been the last, but the broad scope and insistent nature of their premium made it more successful than most.
And only with AOL could one experience the benefits of the AOL software suite. Having that friendly voice tell a consumer that he/she has “Got Mail” and being able to surf with AOL keywords was a blessing in the time before every person and their mother was registered with a .com address.
There were also tons of other AOL-only services like chat rooms and games that sucked customers in. I know my family subscribed to AOL for a number of years solely because my mother couldn’t get enough of playing “Slingo” online, an AOL exclusive privilege at the time.
4. Technical Adaptation
AOL adjusted its software, offers, and services over the years in an attempt to stay as current as possible in the ever changing world of computers. AOL began charging a flat rate per month when the idea of charging by the minute became too much for the customer to handle, and upgrading its look and software to be compatible with each new operating system kept the company in contention year after year. And one of AOL’s larges major updates was making the switch “high speed”. Instead of having to dial up to one of the infinite AOL phone numbers, and possibly paying long distance bills as well as tying up a phone line, a customer could simply connect through their high speed internet connection. Eliminating many an AOL user’s headaches.
5. Working Through Faults
Don’t let the last 4 items of this article fool you. I have hated AOL for years. A high percentage of the people I know also hate AOL. They over-saturated their annoying AOL disks to the point were people have created art with them, and thousands of unused floppys and CDs are filling landfills across the country. Not to mention their proprietary browser sucks, and many of the “exclusive” services were garbage.
It took a while, but normal consumers became fed up with AOL and switched to more convenient, less intrusive ISPs. AOL’s subscriber numbers plummeted, and just when it seemed their number was up, the company merged with Time Warner. Although now a subsidiary, the AOL name lives on, and although many of their practices were/are shady, they are still the fifth most popular ISP.
AOL is no longer the juggernaut it once was, but its business plan of constantly adapting itself to stay competitive while at the same time reaching out to new markets is wildly successful. That, and AOL’s ability to cut costs by sometimes questionable means (outsourcing anyone?) keeps it solidly at the top of the pack.
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