So, Where'd They Go?

So, Where'd They Go?

As we've reported a couple times in the past, one of our interesting nuggets at Return Path is a wealth of "ISP switching data" that comes from our very large, active, self-reported Email Change of Address, or ECOA, service (consumer sign-up; client info). 

I noted the article floating around last week that AOL lost about 1 million subscribers last quarter, the lion's share in the U.S., of course.

So, where'd they all go?

Well, according to our ECOA data, which may of course be somewhat skewed by our data sources (but has data from well over 1 million consumers each quarter), AOL users defected as follows:

To Yahoo! -- 42.5%

To broadband providers in aggregate (cable, etc.)-- 23.5%

To Hotmail/MSN -- 19.5%

To Gmail -- 2.7%

Thanks to my colleague Iffat Ahmed for help pulling these numbers together.