More Tech Plunders: AOL

Time Warner blundered as bad as any company. Netscape had the market share and watched it dwindle - and so did AOL. When TW bought AOL, there was supposed to be a strategy for synergy. The ability to get advertising revenue, exclusive content from all the TW properties (includig all the magazines), and all those You've Got Mail eyeballs together. TW also had a broadband network (RoadRunner).

• There was very little upsell made from AOL dial-up to RR. One reason was that AOL dial-up was HUGELY, grossly profitable.
• There was no strategy to make the premium magazine content available through AOL only.
• Remember WebCrawler, the AOL search engine? Had the most eyeballs, but not branded well.

Today, AOL is free. It's all about the advertising revenue.

If there WAS a plan; it was never executed.