See the story on CNET News.com: “Not all that long ago, America Online looked unbeatable.”
An interesting read. To summarize, AOL, which once was undoubtedly the king of the hill, is now the email people are embarrassed to admit they use. And, with even the reluctant netizen switching to broadband, AOL has decided to reinvent itself and change its profit model to one centered on advertising.
Now, the reason this is interesting to us, is in the big picture:
Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Though the majority of their revenue comes from subscribers, and although they have prepared to ride the wave of fortune as long as they could, they thought ahead and began years ago building AOL as a portal as well.
and it’s interesting in the small picture:
Soon blogs and other ‘new’ things on the net, will inevitable become old-hat one day. Prepare for that. You have to realize that what works now, won’t work next year.
Let’s say you are a VOIP blogger. Your market may be composed of techies right now, but next year your grandma may be reading your blog looking for the latest VOIP technology on your site.
Watch your market. Keep an eye on where your visitors live, what site they’re coming from, even what browser they’re using. Give them the content THEY want.