As America Online Inc. turns more toward advertising dollars to offset the shrinking number of subscribers who pay a monthly fee, the company may be upsetting the long-time customers who have remained faithful over the years.
Virginia Heatwole of Rockville, Md., for example, has been a paying customer since 1993 and turned to AOL when she decided to start her own Web log. One of things she liked about AOL Journals was the absence of advertisements on her blog page.
Now, her personalized Web page that includes her thoughts about nature and spirituality has become a platform for Netflix DVD rental ads.
"They're flashing and screaming at the top of my blog," she said.
The change came last week when Dulles, Va.-based AOL started posting ads on the pages created by AOL Journals, which had been ad-free for two years. Back in May, the company opened the free service to non-subscribers, noting that those blogs would contain ads but that blogs by paying customers would be ad-free.
The company, which is quickly losing subscribers to broadband service providers, switched to an "audience strategy earlier this year," offering free music, video, blogs and other services and features with hopes of increasing the audience and grabbing more online ad dollars.