A few weeks ago, American company AOL announced that it would acquire social media network Bebo. Bebo is wildly popular in the U.K. and across Europe and has an estimated 40+ million registered users worldwide.

Bebo is the latest acquisition by the new media moguls, a group that includes Yahoo!, Google and Microsoft. While traditional media companies, such as the New York Times, BBC and countless others, have had to shrink their newsrooms and cut back on resources to stay in the black, new media companies are spending untold sums to purchase startup tech companies.

Journalists tend not to pay much attention to what's happening outside of mainstream media. When a large American newspaper slashes part of its staff, the news travels lightening-quick throughout the Internet. Or when someone like Rupert Murdoch says that his company plans to buy the Wall Street Journal, journalists talk endlessly about what that means for independent publishing. If you don't believe me, look here, here and here.

From my perspective, Rupert Murdoch shouldn't be the focus of so much attention. The most popular news websites now include Yahoo! News, Google News and AOL News according to Nielsen//NetRatings. If you consider that overall, the websites with the most traffic are primarily social networks (Bebo, MySpace, Facebook) and search (Google, Yahoo!), it seems like publishers should instead focus on how to compete with these new digital players.

You can download a PDF chart showing who owns what in this new media landscape. Have a look, and better yet - see how many of names under Google you recognize. Scary, isn't it?

You can also click here to download a widget that keeps track of media acquisitions, sales and mergers.

Amy Webb is a digital media consultant and head of Webbmedia Group, LLC. Find more multimedia tips and ideas at her blog, http://www.mydigimedia.com. Webbmedia Group is a vendor-neutral company. Any opinions expressed about products or services are formed after testing, research and interviews. Neither Amy Webb nor Webbmedia Group or its employees receives any financial or other benefits from vendors.