For 1995, America Online Looks to Refine Its Pop Appeal

by Victoria Shannon

Monday, February 20, 1995

If you picture America Online as the child whose height shot up a foot in the past year, you should look for signs of maturity in 1995. But a hip kind of maturity, its top dogs promise.

Ted Leonsis, president of America Online Services Co., the guy who runs the place day to day, said he believes that after the tremendous membership spurt of 1994 when more than a million new members joined, the folks at Vienna headquarters need to get to know their customers better -- who they are, what they like, why they might leave -- and to spend time catering to them. A recently finished major marketing survey of users is helping them do that.

As we look at America Online in the last of the columns on the Big Three services' 1995 resolutions, AOL is just shy of the 2 million-member mark. It plans to use this year to focus on content that is both offbeat and more personal. It is working on easier navigation through the system, with higher-speed access, and generous helpings of multimedia eye and ear candy.

In content, we will see more "programmed" information designed for the demographics that the user survey identified. "We're in an era where content is no longer king," Leonsis said. It's what you do with the content that counts: "It's context and community . . . the ability to get at the information when and where you want it."

That means, for instance, that the average customer -- thirty-plus-something, from two-wage households with two kids and combined salaries over $75,000, the survey says -- will find more travel help on spending long weekends with children rather than two-week vacations in Australia.

Last year AOL swept up an impressive suite of brand names, particularly in the media field, names such as the New York Times, Road & Track and MTV. What will it conquer next? Leonsis couldn't yet name names, but look for the same kind of blanket coverage in entertainment, sports and personal finance -- witness its addition this month of American Express.

In the "off-brand" category, AOL is launching a series of forums and discussion areas originating with what it calls "infopreneurs."

Its AOL Greenhouse, a program to foster innovative content designed especially for the on-line medium, turned up 1,200 off-the-wall ideas from users. Picture a forum for hecklers -- yes, a place to go just to do some name-calling, whether it be at politicians or athletes. Or one for a lawyer who quits his job and hits the road for a year. About 50 of them will go on line this year.

When those 30- and 40-year-old parents want to look into the Greenhouse area or find info on Disney World, they should be able to do it more easily by year-end than they can now. Last year's major upgrade of the already simple America Online interface will undergo subtle changes as the year goes on, with an opening screen that has your top places to visit, for example, and reference points to other related places.

"This is a living organism," Leonsis said, that will develop rather than spurt in the future.

Sounds a lot like the World Wide Web, you say? It is. Nearly everyone on any net out there is sold on the "hypertext" approach of the Internet's web, which wraps sound, graphics and automatic indexing to distant, related locations onto one "page." Now, the big commercial on-line services are incorporating it as well.

Oh, and World Wide Web access itself is coming to AOL, in 60 to 90 days max, Leonsis says -- or about the same time CompuServe will offer its own WWW browser (Prodigy beat both to the punch by a few weeks). That's the next spoke of AOL's wheel of Internet connections, after last year's addition of e-mail, newsgroups and file transfer.

Speaking of e-mail, AOL still is trying to deal with frustrating delivery problems, in particular the loss or delay of inbound Internet mail. Last Tuesday, it made a big change in its underlying mail technology that it predicts will fix the problem. Cross your fingers as the adolescent acquires some technical maturity as well.

Now offering 14,400 bits-per-second access, AOL plans 28,800 in 1995 in many places. For travelers and those in areas without access to local dial-ups, AOL will have an 800 number out this spring, for which it will charge an extra connection fee.

For really long-distance travelers, AOL plans to link up with an overseas firm for its own European and Japanese services -- with local content in the local language. Jack Davies, president of America Online International Services Co., said he's in active negotiations with potential partners.

In the meantime, within a month or so you can expect to be able to reach AOL from 130 cities abroad using data services there for an extra charge.

America Online's last big priority for 1995 is multimedia. The big commercial services are going beyond "graphical user interface" to the Big M -- "multimedia user interface." And it won't be just from AOL's computers sending photos and sounds down to us, Leonsis said; it will be from our computers up, through interaction with CD-ROMs in the machines at home. AOL's experiment with 2Market, its CD-ROM-linked shopping service, is leading it to try more CD-ROM interactive ventures.

In the main, AOL in 1995 wants to embody both an adult's wise reasoning and a kid's brash edge. We can only hope that it will leave behind the busy signals and sluggishness that too often blemished it in 1994. Leonsis says those things are history: "We've become a grown-up company." *

Shannon can be e-mailed on CompuServe (75030,1167), America Online (VShannon), Prodigy (BKAS27A) or the Internet (shannonv@twp.com). CAPTION: PLACES TO GO

Multimedia is so much a part of the on-line experience that the big services have developed niche interest areas. Multimedia Exchange, for example, is a forum on America Online targeted to teachers (keyword tin). On CompuServe, the Archive Films Forum (go ARCFILM) and Contemporary Motion Images Forum (go ENERGY) carry film clips, modern and historical. Prodigy carries the multimedia issues column by Steve Rosenthal (jump multimedia).

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