Opinion: Despite all the buzz in the blogosphere about AOL trying to kill MySpace, I think that match-up is just one way to look at it, and probably not the most important, either.So the rumors are true. AOL is building some kind of social network on the back of AIM, its instant messaging service.
And it's going to be called "AIMSpace." Or "Head On." Or "Late to the Party."
But I kid. Whatever its name, an AIM-based social network is an interesting proposition. Because despite all the buzz in the blogosphere about AOL trying to kill MySpace, I think that match-up is just one way to look at it, and probably not the most important either. AOL's real targets are Google, Yahoo and Microsoft.
But before we get to that, let's consider, just for a moment, what AOL has going for it if it is indeed taking MySpace on.
AIM is a pan-demographic instant messaging platform used by everyone from my 16-year-old sister to card-carrying members of the AARP.
The service has more than 43 million users, and each of those users has a buddy list.
AOL also has a pan-demographic, family-friendly brand. You can bet your bottom dollar that every soccer mom with a kozy cooler would rather little Dick and Jane use AOL (effectively the online version of Disney's Celebration) than MySpace (effectively the online version of Amsterdam).
If MySpace continues to have publicity problems, or if News Corp. turns it into a neutered ad haven, AOL's new service could have a fighting chance.
Finally, AOL has years of experience dealing with customers as an ISP. Don't discount this strength, especially when you consider that former networking king Friendster's biggest mistake was alienating its customers.
So that's what AOL has going for it. What they have going against them is that their brand isn't cool. It's not MySpace, and AIMSpace certainly won't be the free-for-all that MySpace has become.
As Jon Fine said in his BusinessWeek column, "social networks thrive on a sort of chaos that's anathema to AOL, and the ways in which AOL seeks to tame the wilder aspects of the Web are at odds with MySpace's loose vibe."
Let's not forget that MySpace also adds about 200,000 new users a day. That's a lot of momentum. I'm not privy to AIM adoption numbers, but I'm willing to bet it's nowhere near that.
But like I said, taking on MySpace is just one piece of AOL's strategy. AOL plays in a much larger competitive landscape that primarily includes Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft. Secondary competitors include eBay and Amazon.
What do each of these companies have that AOL does not? A robust developer community. Google has a well-known open API community that's produced well-known apps like HousingMaps.
eBay has its own developer program that has helped galvanize a cottage industry around the brand. And Microsoft has third-party developers making (for free) widgets for its Windows Live platform.
What does AOL have? Well, despite competing with Google, Yahoo and Microsoft in almost every single vertical, the company only recently opened up the AIM platform.
For the last year or two, AOL has been watching helplessly as communities burgeon around their competitors products. The whole time I bet AOL was saying, "Damn, wouldn't it be nice if we could get in on that."
Hence Ted Leonsis' post, which read, in part: "We're working on adding functionality to AIM that will really open it up—allowing developers, partners, and users to take part."
Yes, AOL wants everybody, teenagers, soccer moms, and code jockeys, to be part of its family. Or, as Scott Karp wrote recently, they just want to use you.
At the end of the day, I think we all know that AOL has to build a new social network, and it has to get developers interested in its products. It started down the community path when it bought Weblogs. Now they're buttressing that purchase with an even bigger AIM-based network.
Will AOL topple MySpace? Not anytime soon. But then again, that's not really the right question, and it doesn't really matter.
AOL has everything to gain and nothing to lose in extending AIM's features. MySpace, meanwhile, has to worry about News Corp. converting it into an ad-happy bannerland.
At any rate, my sister says the school year is over in a few weeks. All those kids, out for summer, trying to keep in touch. Looks like AIMSpace may be debuting at just the right time.
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