(Nikkei BP Group)
(No.1 High-Tech News Site in Japanese)
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| AOL Japan to Distribute CD-ROMs at Movie Theaters
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February 8, 1999 (TOKYO) -- AOL Japan Inc. aims to attract more female
members by distributing CD-ROMs with a women's magazine and in certain
movie theaters.
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It began distributing CD-ROMs attached to Oggi magazine for women published
by Shogakukan Inc., the first time a CD-ROM has been attached to a women's
magazine.
Additionally, AOL in February will distribute CD-ROMs at movie theaters
showing the film "You've Got Mail," a love story in which AOL plays
an important role in linking characters played by actor Tom Hanks and
actress Meg Ryan, who also appeared together in the romantic comedy
"Sleepless in Seattle."
"The type of online service users is apparently changing. Especially
after Apple Japan Inc. released the iMac, people who have no experience
using a PC have become new users. We want to catch them as our members,"
said AOL Japan President Hidemaru Sato.
The ratio of female membership to the total is 31.3 percent, higher than
that of other providers. Also, the number of members last December increased
by 27,000, higher than any other providers, said Sato.
One of the reasons AOL Japan is targeting females is that existing providers
traditionally focus on family members rather than females since large-size
providers such as Nifty Serve of Nifty Corp. and Biglobe of NEC Corp.
get new members more effectively by targeting existing members' families.
However, as AOL Japan's membership is different, it had to target other
types of users.
AOL's membership is just over 210,000, much less than Nifty Serve and
Biglobe.
AOL Japan reportedly continues to target females because an increase
of female membership will lead to an increase of male members attracted
by them.
Related story: AOL
Japan's Membership Tops 200,000
(Nikkei
Personal Computing)
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