Facebook hits back at Twitter with FriendFeed purchase

 

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By Reuters

Posted on 11 Aug 2009 at 11:02

Facebook has announced that it's buying FriendFeed, as it looks to introduce new technologies to stay ahead of fast-growing Twitter.

FriendFeed, an up-and-coming social-media startup, lets people share content online in real time across various social networks and blogs. The service is similar to Twitter, the microblogging site that Facebook tried to buy for $500 million in 2008.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Facebook says FriendFeed will operate as it has for the time being as the teams determine long-term plans.

Analysts claim Facebook's big gain in the acquisition is the engineering talent at FriendFeed, rather than the actual product, which has won critical praise, but lagged in popularity compared to Twitter.

FriendFeed's four founders are former Google employees who count well known products like Gmail and Google Maps among their accomplishments. Facebook claims they will hold senior roles on its engineering and product teams.

Facebook has more than 250 million registered users. In May, the social networking company announced a $200 million investment from Russian investor Digital Sky Technologies that pegged the value of its preferred shares at $10 billion.

Facebook claims revenue is on track to rise 70% this year, hitting around $500 million.