The Daily Muse: AOL goes AWOL

Getting tough on AOL
Millions of America Online subscribers have a right to cheer the company's agreement to give them back some of the money they lost waiting, waiting, waiting.
But what about the 70% of Americans who aren't inclined to "surf the Net" (whatever that means), who think snail mail will do just fine, thank you, and who don't care to build a home on the big WWWide way.
They must think those 36 attorneys general (just what we need: lawyers in uniform) who held simultaneous news conferences to announce their victory over Steve Case are nuts.
Really. What's more important? That a few million teen-agers get satisfaction downloading the latest JPEGs from Penthouse? Or that murderers and other real criminals are taken off the streets?
Come on. Where are our priorities, people?

(We now return you to our regularly scheduled Web program...)

On Steve's Case

With all of America ("You've got junk mail!") Online's woes of late, Steve Case has decided on yet another bold new marketing strategy.
When last we dialed in, Stevereno opened the floodgates by offering a simple all-you-can-click plan for a nickel under 20 bucks a month.
Fine. Gobble up as much market share as you can stand. Shake out the mom and pop ISP's and see who's left standing when the smoke clears.
But then...it turned out to be too much of a good thing. Busy signals, WWWeb and email outages, lawsuits. (Yea, yea. You've heard it before: America Offline.) And, of course, the rest is history.
Things got so rough Mr. C. had to beg his 227 million subscribers to lay off their redial buttons. Imagine that. Meanwhile, TV ads running 14 times an hour offer 50 months of free service...(Kind of like the Public Works Department having no idea everyone would flush at half time).
Well now Mr. Case is really desperate. How desperate? So much so that our unreliable sources at AOL-HQ say he's willing to pay 25 cents an hour for each 60 minutes you stay off his service--at least until all his new Sportsters arrive.
Meanwhile, we'll just have to do all our mind washing in front of the TV...

Goodbye!

Lots of folks are scratching their heads wondering why ex-FedEx exec William Razzouk decided to go AWOL from AOL after just four months on the job. Razzouk stepped down as president and chief operator ("Yes m'am. Please hold for the next available technician..."), citing family matters.
There's no reason not to believe him. But our unreliable sources see a more sinister side to the story.
Perhaps Razzouk's downfall began when he started racking up a little bit too much online time (even rounded to the next minute, he got to click for free, of course). Word has it Wrazz was spotted by The AOL Police frequenting some less-than-savory chat rooms.

Sweetthing: "So what's your sign?"
Wrazz: "Your place or mine?"

You get the idea. And so did AOL King Steve Case. Before you could say, "You've got mail!" Wrazz was history...
Remember, you heard it here first.

AOL's Case: 'Just browsing'

America Online was tired of the single life so it decided to get married. Only problem was online king Steve Case couldn't make up his mind which girl to walk down the aisle with. So for today, at least, AOL's preparing a honeymoon with two brides:

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