Well, maybe they want to be the central destination, or at least one of the major ones, for all activity, but I think they’ve demonstrated a willingness to not hoard data (for the most part) and to “play nice” with other services, sometimes even competitors.

However, “Facebook as AOL” is a good analogy, because of how they handle data, steal ideas and implement them, etc.

–Kyle

I tried choosing my words carefully, specifically to avoid the open question. I would not call them the next AOL, but the concept is fairly similar, “one destination to act as the whole internet”. That was my real focus, but perhaps I did not really get that across to people.

Although I think you missed a central point: Google isn’t the “next AOL”, because they take great pains to make these things open. Very different.

–Kyle

You wrote that post around the same time I was thinking of writing it It is interesting how things are coming full circle. Amazon has a long way to go with the Kindle, but Apple could be on the same trajectory as Google and Facebook. I will need to think about that one.