[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.The practice led to the coining of the phrase “walled garden” to describe AOL and other services.Of the two market leaders, Prodigy was very consumer-oriented, with many shopping services; CompuServe targeted the business community with financial data and related information.AOL decided to be a really easy-to-use service, since some people complained that Prodigy and CompuServe were difficultTHE AOL EXPER IENCE123to navigate.In 1992, personal computers were an increasingly common household appliance, but most Americans weren’t using them everyday.AOL wanted to make computers and modem communications less scary and technical, so they offered no whiz-bang features and rigged a service with clickable open-and-close screens, like the word-processing applications many people were using.It was very basic.Subscribers could find magazines and some shopping on the service; then they would go to chat rooms and type in messages in real-time, almost as if they were talking on the telephone.The future was never certain at AOL.The tiny Vienna, Virginia, company had high hopes and just 136 employees.A young and ambitious senior executive named Steve Case was in charge.He based his decisions on his vision: He believed that the world was going to want to get connected through their computers.AOL could provide an online service where everyone would want to be.It didn’t sound all that different from Allen’s wired world.Steve Case had come to AOL by way of a marketing job at Pizza Hut.He was low-key and casual.He wore khakis to work and didn’t say much.He quietly observed other people, markets, and the way his online service was being used by customers.He wasn’t a brash CEO or a big salesman.He was a genuinely shy man.He was nearly the opposite of the tech industry’s mascot, Bill Gates, except that he was fiercely driven and devoted to his company.But Case was also like Paul Allen; he loved technology and the way it could be used by consumers.He had early visionary experiences like Allen.In 1983, he’d seen a demonstration of an online service and became hooked on its potential.Unlike Allen, he wasn’t a feature-freak; he pushed for simplicity in AOL.He wanted lots of people to be able to use it, and he listened to their feedback and observed their habits.People were spending a lot of time in communications areas like e-mail and chat.He built up those areas and made them the main draw to AOL.124THE ACCIDENTAL ZILLIONAIRECase kept things simple with customers, but he pushed the envelope behind the scenes.It was a balance that worked.In 1987, he inked a couple of risky deals with Apple, Commodore, and Tandy that left the balance of the expenses in Quantum’s lap.Quantum’s board of directors wasn’t happy to learn about the deals and almost fired Case.But he remained and the deals ultimately paid off.Case established a tradition of giving products away up front with expectations of future profit, like when AOLlater earned a reputation for mailing out free copies of its software to get customers to sign up for the service.It helped that Case wasn’t the end of the line.He had shareholders and a board of directors, who kept him in check.It was a balance that served AOL’s success in the 1990s.With Case as its fearless, visionary leader, AOL also had a board and other executives to give Case a dose of reality when he began believing a little naively in the future.It was the board that stepped in when Case began believing in one particular preying shareholder: Allen.In its earliest days as a consumer online service, what AOLneeded more than anything else was aggressive growth.It needed customers and a higher profile.At first, Allen’s interest was greatly welcomed.In 1992, when he invested in America Online, Allen was caught up in SkyPix and Starwave and piecing together his grand wired world vision.He had figured out that the connections between people—whether satellite, cable, fiber-optic, or telephone—were key to bringing the wired world together.He really wanted to be the guy who made the wired world happen, so he had bought SkyPix.He had good vision; he should have been given the reigns, he believed.He had a good gut about these things and when it toldTHE AOL EXPER IENCE125him to do something, he felt he should act fast.When he had seen the Popular Electronics cover in 1974, he urged Bill Gates to get moving pronto on BASIC.It had been the right move.Now, he wanted to get going on the wired world—before it was too late.He had acquired shares in AOL partly as a favor to Liddle and Quindlen, but once he did, he started thinking more about this little company in Virginia.Online services weren’t something he’d really pursued so far, but maybe there was something there.They were the connections into people’s homes, and they controlled everything consumers saw on the service.In some ways, these online services had created their own wired worlds.Allen’s wired world was far more interesting than theirs, though.In his view, our connected universe was more than just some static pages with stories on them, or online catalogs offering goods and services [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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.The practice led to the coining of the phrase “walled garden” to describe AOL and other services.Of the two market leaders, Prodigy was very consumer-oriented, with many shopping services; CompuServe targeted the business community with financial data and related information.AOL decided to be a really easy-to-use service, since some people complained that Prodigy and CompuServe were difficultTHE AOL EXPER IENCE123to navigate.In 1992, personal computers were an increasingly common household appliance, but most Americans weren’t using them everyday.AOL wanted to make computers and modem communications less scary and technical, so they offered no whiz-bang features and rigged a service with clickable open-and-close screens, like the word-processing applications many people were using.It was very basic.Subscribers could find magazines and some shopping on the service; then they would go to chat rooms and type in messages in real-time, almost as if they were talking on the telephone.The future was never certain at AOL.The tiny Vienna, Virginia, company had high hopes and just 136 employees.A young and ambitious senior executive named Steve Case was in charge.He based his decisions on his vision: He believed that the world was going to want to get connected through their computers.AOL could provide an online service where everyone would want to be.It didn’t sound all that different from Allen’s wired world.Steve Case had come to AOL by way of a marketing job at Pizza Hut.He was low-key and casual.He wore khakis to work and didn’t say much.He quietly observed other people, markets, and the way his online service was being used by customers.He wasn’t a brash CEO or a big salesman.He was a genuinely shy man.He was nearly the opposite of the tech industry’s mascot, Bill Gates, except that he was fiercely driven and devoted to his company.But Case was also like Paul Allen; he loved technology and the way it could be used by consumers.He had early visionary experiences like Allen.In 1983, he’d seen a demonstration of an online service and became hooked on its potential.Unlike Allen, he wasn’t a feature-freak; he pushed for simplicity in AOL.He wanted lots of people to be able to use it, and he listened to their feedback and observed their habits.People were spending a lot of time in communications areas like e-mail and chat.He built up those areas and made them the main draw to AOL.124THE ACCIDENTAL ZILLIONAIRECase kept things simple with customers, but he pushed the envelope behind the scenes.It was a balance that worked.In 1987, he inked a couple of risky deals with Apple, Commodore, and Tandy that left the balance of the expenses in Quantum’s lap.Quantum’s board of directors wasn’t happy to learn about the deals and almost fired Case.But he remained and the deals ultimately paid off.Case established a tradition of giving products away up front with expectations of future profit, like when AOLlater earned a reputation for mailing out free copies of its software to get customers to sign up for the service.It helped that Case wasn’t the end of the line.He had shareholders and a board of directors, who kept him in check.It was a balance that served AOL’s success in the 1990s.With Case as its fearless, visionary leader, AOL also had a board and other executives to give Case a dose of reality when he began believing a little naively in the future.It was the board that stepped in when Case began believing in one particular preying shareholder: Allen.In its earliest days as a consumer online service, what AOLneeded more than anything else was aggressive growth.It needed customers and a higher profile.At first, Allen’s interest was greatly welcomed.In 1992, when he invested in America Online, Allen was caught up in SkyPix and Starwave and piecing together his grand wired world vision.He had figured out that the connections between people—whether satellite, cable, fiber-optic, or telephone—were key to bringing the wired world together.He really wanted to be the guy who made the wired world happen, so he had bought SkyPix.He had good vision; he should have been given the reigns, he believed.He had a good gut about these things and when it toldTHE AOL EXPER IENCE125him to do something, he felt he should act fast.When he had seen the Popular Electronics cover in 1974, he urged Bill Gates to get moving pronto on BASIC.It had been the right move.Now, he wanted to get going on the wired world—before it was too late.He had acquired shares in AOL partly as a favor to Liddle and Quindlen, but once he did, he started thinking more about this little company in Virginia.Online services weren’t something he’d really pursued so far, but maybe there was something there.They were the connections into people’s homes, and they controlled everything consumers saw on the service.In some ways, these online services had created their own wired worlds.Allen’s wired world was far more interesting than theirs, though.In his view, our connected universe was more than just some static pages with stories on them, or online catalogs offering goods and services [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]