Around the Net
Review: AIM Pages And AIM Phoneline
- Fortune, Friday, May 12, 2006 10:48 AM
Time Warner's AOL is having problems coming up with original ideas. Fortune asks whether rolling out what it hopes will be new and improved versions of other companies' products will be enough to ring in a turnaround. The "ideas" in question here are AIM Pages and AIM Phoneline, AOL's responses to My Space and Skype. According to the Fortune review, AIM Pages and AIM Phoneline have a few nice features to distance them from their predecessors, but the bad news is simply that "MySpace and Skype already exist." In other words, there's no compelling reason for consumers to switch. These new products will have to gain traffic, and if you think about MySpace, it takes a serious time investment for users to create their pages. The good thing about AIM Pages is that it links to users’ IM buddy lists, so gathering friends won't be an obstacle. The other good thing is that AIM is still very widely used here in the U.S., so the new features may be enough to entice users to build-up their pages. Somewhat cleverly, AIM Phoneline offers a free local phone number for in-bound calls--as opposed to Skype's $4 SkypeIn service--which one AOL exec calls the "perfect complement" for people who don't want to give out their mobile number to casual acquaintances. AOL might worry that its pattern of improving on other's offerings hasn't always worked in the past. Indeed, "just because AOL builds a better mousetrap doesn't mean the mice will come."
