Short Term’s the Same Too

“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.

  1. Someone with a long, established history in cameras and other portable hardware (so not Opera).
  2. Someone without a great deal of cache or presence with Facebook’s target audience (so not Apple).
  3. 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).
  4. Someone with declining revenues (so not Disney)

How about – Sony?