What if Facebook Ever Got Serious About Becoming a News Aggregation Vampire?
Here are two quotes that got me thinking about what would happen if Facebook–whose user base is inexorably marching toward 400 million–ever got serious about the news aggregation business. First, perpetual apple-cart-upsetter Mark Cuban raised everyone’s hackles this week by taking aim at online sites that aggregate news from other sources, especially Google (GOOG). Among other colorful things Cuban said during a keynote speech: “Google is a vampire, and you run scared. There is no reason to be indexed in Google….You haven’t gotten anything back except that you’ve turned into zombies….You’ve got to realize they’re vampires and you can’t be the dumb blonde showing your neck.” Then, yesterday, in a fourth-quarter earnings call, AOL (AOL) CEO Tim Armstrong, answering a question about the renewal status of its search deal with Google, talked about how other outlets, especially Facebook, are now more important than ever to getting traffic for his company’s content. “Our strategy on distribu
