Facebook Acquires FriendFeed

It's all over the news about the tech industry. Facebook acquired FriendFeed. It was a big, bold move. Its purpose? Well if you read the majority of news articles out there, you will hear "authorities" in the field making statements like, "Facebook is gunning for Twitter and Google with this acquisition," etc, etc.

But of the companies that Facebook has acquired in the past, how many have had the technology of their services integrated into Facebook? A little research will show you that the technologies are not what Facebook is after so much as it is the innovative minds behind them.

When Facebook purchased Parakey, the web-based computer user interface, were they trying to integrate Parakey's technology into Facebook? Notice that the purchase included the developers' assistance in progressing Facebook. This meant that Facebook would add the famous Blake Ross, co-developer of Mozilla Firefox, to their team.

If you look at the FriendFeed acquisition, you will also find that as part of the agreement, all FriendFeed employees will join Facebook and the company's four founders will be given senior roles in Facebook's engineering and product teams.

And seriously, if you can buy the artist the painting becomes a tad superfluous, really. If the painter is a competitor, so much the better. My money says Facebook will praise FriendFeed and slowly phase it out. If Facebook will absorb anything from FriendFeed, it will be the example of simplicity that it provides. Facebook began as a simple service, but like most technologies, it has grown heavy with new complexities. Facebook's goal will almost certainly be to streamline its own product in order not to scare off new users.

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