Facebook Buys FriendFeed

NEW YORK Facebook has acquired social-media tracker FriendFeed; terms of the deal were not disclosed. Mountain View, Calif.-based FriendFeed was founded by four well-regarded ex-Google executives, including Bret Taylor, who launched Google Maps, and Paul Buchheit, the brains behind Gmail.FriendFeed simplifies social-media interaction by allowing users to share information, links, videos and the like from multiple platforms, including Twitter, Facebook and e-mail. Users can then carry on live conversations with different groups of friends, regardless of which platform those friends are using. Facebook officials said that all 12 FriendFeed employees would be retained as part of the acquisition. FriendFeed's four founders will assume senior roles within Facebook's engineering and product teams. The acquisition would not appear to have immediate revenue or advertising implications for Facebook. However, the deal is notable because FriendFeed is one of several companies at the forefront of "real-time" communications on the Web. Some advocates of this highly integrated and instantaneous approach believe it will have a major impact on content delivery and search as more Web users potentially opt to receive information through personal contacts rather than publishers and media companies.But for Facebook, FriendFeed's technology may simply make it easier for users to consume and share content on the site, and for advertisers to attach their messages to popular content. Neither are Facebook strengths currently, according to Michael Burke, president and founder of the social networking application rep firm appssavvy. "Facebook is a great place for to publish content, status updates and photos, but it's a lousy place to consume content," he said. "Basically, you can't organize all that well nor can you effectively search inside or outside your friend network."Burke added: "The goal with FriendFeed...should be to help users manage, aggregate and search this content. In addition, from an advertising standpoint, all of this should create more activity around the content, and that should create advertising opportunities."Nielsen Business Media

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Facebook Buys FriendFeed

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