AOL Anywhere: The Mobile Access Portal

Today's communications companies envision a future where each customer will be assigned a single telephone number for the home, office, and cell phone. The emergence of the e-economy makes the same objective logical for online identities and e-mail addresses as well. AOL Time Warner's "AOL Anywhere" strategy is based on the desire of its millions of users to simplify their lives.

AOL has one crucial advantage over their competitors - a revenue stream comprising 35 million customers paying monthly subscription fees. These revenues allow AOL Anywhere to experiment with providing wireless applications to this immense user community without financial risk. The AOL Anywhere strategy makes AOL services universally available on a variety of mobile devices, including handhelds, mobile communicators, cell phones, and TVs. The service frees users from worrying about managing multiple Internet identities, formulating multiple buddy lists, and having to learn and use complex technologies to port their online identities from platform to platform. AOL Anywhere is about convenience. The strategy allows AOL to combine service, ease of use, and universal availability and to create a compelling wireless experience for users in all mobile and stationary venues.

AOL Anywhere has several products aimed at different market segments. For example, the AOL product Mobile Communicator basically performs two functions: e-mail and instant messaging. The Communicator is a customized version of Research in Motion's two-way pager, which uses Cingular's (Mobitex) network. The product is aimed at professionals who want real-time access to crucial information and the ability to respond to e-mail when they are out of the office or write a quick message when phoning might be inappropriate. This product is not designed for surfing the Internet, since it displays only a couple of dozen characters at a time. AOL customers who want to surf the Internet can subscribe to the AOL Handheld offering, which is more useful than Communicator for shopping or checking news, stock quotes, and sports scores.

Over time, AOL mobile offerings will evolve and provide many of the capabilities shown in Figure 1. This figure illustrates four different product categories that mobile users seem to want: 1) entertainment, 2) information, 3) communication, and 4) commerce. AOL has long demonstrated the leverage possible when a company functions as both an aggregator and a distributor. By first building a strong user base and attracting sponsors for whom AOL served as a broker/dealer, the company has proven its value to each constituency.

Figure 1: AOL's Mobile Capability Framework

Apart from access fees, AOL plans to make money through target advertising. For example, an AOL subscriber, Wendy, stores her grocery list online. She asks AOL to inform her of deals on certain items at each of her local Kroger, Safeway, and Publix grocers. Before she leaves for the grocery store, she pulls up her grocery list on her cell phone and notices an alert from AOL telling her that a certain store is running a special on several items and that she can actually save more money by shopping there. If Wendy needs directions to the store, she can easily use her cell phone to access AOL MapQuest. AOL plans to charge a premium for ads that reach targeted customers and that prompt impulse purchases just as the customer is making an initial buying decision.

AOL is positioning itself to become a mobile portal leader. In the past, AOL's strength has come from the variety of integrated services it provides. The company is more than just an Internet service provider; it also provides both its own and others' content. In an effort to expand its service offerings and keep these services easy to use, AOL has acquired MovieFone, MapQuest, Quack, and Tegic Communications. It has also entered into a series of agreements that ensure consumer access to AOL services via cell phone, Palm unit, or any other mobile device. The company's early mover advantage, precise initial segment targeting, and content and partner lineup focus on customer ease of use. Clearly, innovative services are the core drivers behind AOL's marketing strategy.