"I have a theory that there's always at least one big web portal - AOL started as a dial-up ISP and turned into a portal. Yahoo started as a search engine and t

"I have a theory that there's always at least one big web portal - AOL started as a dial-up ISP and turned into a portal. Yahoo started as a search engine and turned into a portal. Facebook started as a social network and turned into a portal." It goes deeper than that ... the trend is not to become a portal but rather, to become "the phone company". Everyone is trying to become "the phone company" in which they attain a central, monopoly position through which all communication takes place. Google and Facebook are currently fighting for that spot. They're trying to become AOL, but more deeply, like AOL before them, they're all just trying to become ma bell. This is very convincingly explained in the very highly regarded book _The Master Switch_, by Tim Wu.