Sara Kehaulani Goo, AOL May Speed Shift Away From Subscribers, Washington Post, July 7, 2006. AOL is converting from subscriptions to ad-supported open access. It will give up $1.8 billion in subscription revenue, but it will also realize large savings by cutting "hundreds or thousands of jobs related to marketing and subscriber retention." And there's this:
"It's a case where AOL has to make a move to stay competitive," said Rob Enderle, a Silicon Valley technology consultant. "While they are declining slowly, they are still declining. It wasn't a matter of if but when they would be dead."
PS: It's not scholarly communication, but it's a sign of larger trends.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 7/07/2006 05:42:00 PM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
