Facebook, the Media Company

That is likely to come in the form of a raft of new Facebook buttons. The like button was just the beginning. There are reports Facebook is going to introduce buttons for people to indicate what they read, listened to, and watched. I’ve also heard talk of a buy button, which would be a major step for Facebook to become the middleman for e-commerce companies. Retailers probably aren’t crazy with the idea of Facebook collecting all that data on their customers, but everyone has Facebook accounts. It makes sense for Facebook to power transactions — and take a little cut.

But the main focus will likely be content. Silicon Valley giants from Microsoft to Apple to Google have long been hell-bent in getting into the content-distribution business. Now Facebook takes that step. Zuckerberg used to compare how many “stories” users created on Facebook via status updates to what newspapers produce. That wasn’t exact. But Facebook now has the opportunity to drive more content consumption.  A revamped profile is built around that, according to Mashable.