AOL, which has already told investors it will spend up to $200 million firing a good chunk of its staff, has now told employees. The company is looking for “up to 2,500 volunteers,” CEO Tim Armstrong told his staff today. That’s a third of AOL’s payroll.
The new conventional wisdom is that sooner or later, consumers will have to start paying for some of the stuff they currently get for free on the Web.
But will they actually pay up? Here, the conventional wisdom is not so helpful. Nor are studies predicting consumer behavior.
Would you pay $30 a month to watch TV via iTunes?
That’s the pitch Apple has been making to TV networks in recent weeks. The company is trying to round up support for a monthly subscription service that would deliver TV programs via its multimedia software, multiple sources tell me. The industry finds this idea both tempting and terrifying.
Twitter’s status site said this yesterday: “We’re currently diagnosing the causes of an unplanned site outage that happened a few minutes ago. We are recovering from this issue now and apologize for the interruption in service.”
Looks like I called this one wrong: Earlier in the day, I predicted that Web interest in Michael Jackson’s funeral would be less than expected because anyone who really cared about this would be watching on TV. Nope.
Remember all the way back, a couple weeks ago, when everyone was talking about Twitter and Oprah and Ashton Kutcher and the millions of people who were joining Twitter every week? Turns out the majority of those new Twitterers–three out of every five–won’t be back in May. That’s a problem, says Web measurement service Nielsen.
Netflix has been one of the rare winners during the recession/depression: Customers are flocking to the movie rental service and investors love the stock. This meant that expectations were very high for the company’s first quarter, and it appears to have met them.
It’s no surprise that financial advertising has slowed down in the first three quarters of 2008. The surprise is that it’s only been a 10 percent reduction, according to Nielsen. But next year will be worse, of course.
Peter Kafka has been covering media and technology since 1997, when he joined the staff of Forbes magazine. Most recently, he has been the managing editor of the tech and media Web site, Silicon Alley Insider. Read more »
Here is a statement of my ethics and coverage policies. It is more than most of you want to know, but, in the age of suspicion of the media, I am laying it all out.
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