Will Mashable join Tim Armstrong’s Aol empire?

Jon Silk’s written today of news that Aol may bid for Mashable.

Silk compares edgy TechCrunch to Mashable’s safer but just as popular content and suggests there is little wonder why its Mashable that’s talking to a big name buyer.

I’m a fan of many of the more geeky Aol blogs but don’t understand their RSS policy. You’re only allowed to use the RSS feeds provided by them – so no Yahoo Pipe filters. You’re also stuck if someone hits “share” on Google Reader as that means an RSS compilation from that contact, not from Weblogs, is responsible for delivering the content.

Anyway; niche debates about RSS aside – Mashable does seem like a good fit with the new Aol. Cashmore’s crew may even encourage the budding content empire to be more social media friendly.

Doesn’t this go against many predictions that Aol would focus on a Demand Media-style strategy of automating as much of the content generation as possible? Interesting times, interesting times…