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Having Fun at AOL's Expense?
February 6th 1997... Tonight AOL suffered another catastrophe--a service outage. AOL's spokesperson told C|Net it was "a hiccup in the new software"--which ironically occurred just ten hours before a scheduled maintainence shutdown of three hours. Members were locked out of AOL for over an hour. "AOL may be on the brink of disaster," C|Net's Janet Kornblum wrote, citing comments from an industry analyst pointing to AOL's "overall bad-service package" as a turn-off for consumers. (http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,7691,4000.html) Content-provider defections loom, too. One week before the hacker riot, AOL faces a threatened strike from their Company Connection content partners. (http://www.sb.net/kevin/aolstrike.txt) "Your forum and mine are in grave danger of being eliminated," reads the message distributed to all its company representatives. AOL's Kevin Schoeler had announced plans to "enhance" their AOL status for a "modest fee" of $55,000 a year. "This policy change comes disguised as an 'exciting opportunity' with the Company Connection being 'redesigned and enhanced'," the letter notes sarcastically--pointing out the only new feature would be duplicative monthly reports and demographics on forum participants. "If you refuse to pay this $55,000 annual ransom, your forum will be dismantled and you will be evicted from America Online!!!" They're the latest casualty of AOL's flat-rate pricing. "Not long ago, we were a valuable asset to AOL's income. Now we are a financial burden," the letter continues. "They expect us to pay up or get out, while popular 'magnet' forums like MTV continue to RECEIVE substantial residual payments." Indicating that many forum managers were striking Friday, the letter calls for others to join them. "Together, we can send a message to the AOL brain-donors who came up with this scam," it predicts, "that we will not succumb to this ridiculous idea. That we will not pay ransom money to keep THEIR PAYING customers happy. That we will not go quietly into the night!" The strike is scheduled to begin Friday, February 7, "and will only end when AOL rescinds this policy." Content providers will conceal files and replace message forums with a statement that "This forum is participating in the Company Connection Strike." It takes their case to AOL's users. "America Online has introduced a new policy that will make it impossible for us to continue to support you, our valued customers, on America Online. If you value our having a forum here on AOL, please send a note in support of our strike to: CompanyCon@aol.com. Sorry for this inconvenience and thank you for your support." And the strikers will not pay "the $55,000 ransom". Instead, they forwarded their message to the press. "I'm sure they'll be happy to report this strike along with America Online's other 'good' press." The letter's author told Interactive Week that several forum leaders had already decided to abandon AOL. But the threatened strike still looms. "We have nothing to lose and everything to gain." THE LAST LAUGH AOL's refund line greets callers with pitches for their service. "Thank you for calling America Online. We value your membership--and we're working around the clock to prove it!" Late-night callers are then told to call back during business hours.
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Copyright 1997 
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Article provided by...
David Cassel
More Information - http://www.wco.com/~destiny/time.htm
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