The prediction, in brief:

Whether AOL’s attempt to co-opt the Internet will pay off remains to be seen. In the meantime, the company is determined to make hay while its new competitors find their footing. The plan: diversify the revenue stream by bringing more commerce and advertising to the AOL community while luring millions of new users through investments in multimedia technology and innovative content.

Predictor: Nollinger, Mark

Prediction, in context:

In a 1995 article in Wired magazine, Mark Nollinger writes about Steve Case and America Online:”Case is confident AOL can pull it off. The company’s posture is that the Internet represents an opportunity, not a threat, even for the core service. For one thing, the explosion of Web sites opens AOL to tons of new content – none of which it has to pay for. By highlighting the most popular sites and grouping them by subject area, AOL can provide a ‘best of breed’ offering for subscribers who have neither the time nor the inclination to explore on their own. And the company’s decision to integrate its Web browser into the existing AOL interface was a particularly slick move. Since members can access the Web from inside AOL content areas, home pages seem as much a part of the service as any of its proprietary offerings. The message to users: America Online and the Web are one and the same. Whether AOL’s attempt to co-opt the Internet will pay off remains to be seen. In the meantime, the company is determined to make hay while its new competitors find their footing. The plan: diversify the revenue stream by bringing more commerce and advertising to the AOL community while luring millions of new users through investments in multimedia technology and innovative content.” 

Date of prediction: August 1, 1995

Topic of prediction: Getting, Sharing Information

Subtopic: General

Name of publication: Wired

Title, headline, chapter name: America, Online! America Online Has Been on a Rocket Ride, Now it Would Like to Morph Into an ‘Interactive Service Company’ Before Microsoft and the Web Eat its Lunch

Quote Type: Paraphrase

Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/3.09/aol_pr.html

This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Stotler, Larry