AOL hits into rough with painful independent fourth quarter
AOL saw Q4 sales drop 17 per cent in its first financial results since being spurned by one-time parent Time Warner Inc. It pulled in profit of $1.4m, or a penny per share, for the quarter ended 31 December 2009. That compared with a loss of $1.96bn, or $18.52 a share, in the same period a year earlier, when Time Warner declared …
I don't mean this as a sarcastic put-down or anything but...
Seriously, how are AOL still in existence in 2010?
Who actually chooses to stay with them let alone join them, given what so many other ISPs offer.
No wonder! Have you been on their UK website?
It took me about 5 minutes to find out about their broadband service. They must think they are a news site or MSN, not an ISP!
Whoever designs their website needs sacked, I blame him/her for their lack of sales!
perhaps it is a matter of the devil you know............
The only people I know using AOL are either:
- Over 60
- Live on the east coast (of the US)
- Are on dial-up
- Continually send me useless emails that start with "FWD: FW: FW"
- Any combination or total of all of the above - take your pick
AOL deserves the slow death it will likely endure - I just hope its users find no other way (back) onto the Internet when it finally closes its doors forever.
Unfortunately they are one of the few suppliers in my area that offer one month contracts, I could jump over to another but only one other firm serves my area (which is way out in the stix) that does short contract So they are useful sometimes. (I want short contract to be ready to move at any time)
That would be because AOL.co.uk is not owned by the same company as the AOL UK broadband service provider. AOL.co.uk is owned by AOL Inc, the U.S. company which owns the AOL content and advertising business, as well as the U.S. advertising operation. The AOL UK ISP is owned by Carphone Warehouse PLC in it's CPW Broadband Services (UK) Limited operating division, soon to be demerged into Talk Talk Telecom Group PLC.
I remember years ago when AOL was used by millions and as ever really crap. Us reg readers, myself included, were posting then in comments that eventually people WOULD wake up and AOL would get up and die! Nice to see the slow death of AOL is continuing as we all predicted :) This is what happens to people who don;t listen to customers complaints, deny issues with spam, eve when AOL email addresses that were never used by subscribers were getting spammed! and ignoring their customer base when faults dragged on and on and on unfixed.
Smile :)
AOL is a classic example of a company that has been left behind by the market. They are going to have to do something major to win back market share.
As an AOL user since 1999 I dis-embarked last year in 2009. The service was actually pretty good in my area until they got bought out by Carphone Warehouse. Then it nose dived, constant failures, fobbed off by indian call centres etc. The only way I got the thing working was using OpenDNS servers!
Turns out CPW do the same now - they use OpenDNS themselves.
The AOL software is terrible - truly an abomination of the binary code.
Paris, because after seeing the errors of my AOL ways I have now found sanctuary another ISP who is like going from dating someone from the local bingo parlour.
