“In long-term, facebook will be the next AOL. Think about it.” – Stewie
I’ll even say Facebook is Aol in the short term.
- Both are frequently confused for the internet.
- Both very rigid, ad-subsidized publishing platforms.
- Both pay their writers nearly nothing in exchange for a promise of exposure and more efficient publishing tools.
In Aol’s hay day (circa 2000), it acquired Time Warner (awkward). From a media publishing & distribution standpoint a merger sorta kinda makes sense (if you squint). Nine years later – they divorced. A blink in publishing, a generation online.
For Facebook to truly be analogous to Aol, Facebook needs a similar balls out acquisition.
There’s not a lot of candidates.
- Someone with a long, established history in cameras and other portable hardware (so not Opera).
- Someone without a great deal of cache or presence with Facebook’s target audience (so not Apple).
- Even better if they’ve got a huge stable of actors, musicians, and other creative assets that might be attractive to Facebook’s target audience (so not Samsung).
- Someone with declining revenues (so not Disney)
How about – Sony?