Facebook acquires FriendFeed – Reasons and predictions

Ok, the news is already all over the web since yesterday, and this post is just not the same one to tell you that Facebook has acquired Friendfeed. I wanted to share my views on the deal. Its something one would have not expected from Facebook, or a social network, who was trying to earlier patch up with Twitter, but suddenly shook the hands with Friendfeed. It has been a good news for some, but a shock to many. They were on Friendfeed for some good reason, and now after they hear the news, Streamy, an alternative has already gained popularity with people making a shift to there from the old favorite friendfeed.

Here are some good reads about thoughts on the deal -

• Om Malik on Why facebook wants friendfeed
• Guardian post on how the deal helps in web domination
• TC Interview of the guys after the acquisition

Do we call a new startup with them as FaceFeed?

My take on this?
1. I think the deal made is perfect(not caring of what the amount was, though the figures stand at $50m), and this can put an impact on Google, rather than on Twitter.
Why? Twitter has never been into big content creation, but was a different platform. Content collection is Google’s job and Facebook is trying to compete with its already popular social network, and now with Friendfeed too, which is a big source of news, photos and stuff sharing.

2. Facebook did not want the Friendfeed site, but the people behind it. This is my assumption. Check the FF team. Here are some big points, most of the Friendfeed team members were in Google -

• Bret Taylor – Bret was a Group Product Manager at Google, where he launched Google Maps, the Google Maps API, and founded Google’s Developer product group.
• Jim Norris – Jim most recently was a Software Engineer at Google for four years, where he launched Google Maps and worked on Google’s core infrastructure team.
• Paul Buchheit – Paul was the engineer behind Gmail.
• Sanjeev Singh – Sanjeev previously worked at Google on Gmail and the Google Search Appliance.
• Ana Yang – Ana worked on product marketing at Google for four years, leading Gmail marketing for three years.
• Kevin Fox – Most recently worked at Google, designing interfaces for Gmail, Google Calendar, Reader, and other products.
• Tudor Bosman – He worked at Google on Gmail.
• Gary Burd – Gary most recently worked at Google, where he launched Google Talk and Google’s user profile service.

Bret Taylor, also said in the blog post yesterday -

As my mom explained to me, when two companies love each other very much, they form a structured investment vehicle.

The joining-up of both can be a big wall against Google, in the present world where real-time information gathering is the first choice. Apart from this, Mark Zuckerberg has always been admiring Friendfeed and the concept behind it. So, he surely has no plans to dump the site as Google does with the services which it buys(jaiku as an example).

3. With the web building itself rapidly, and Facebook with its hundreds of millions of users, is not able to control everything pretty well, and now they have got a strong team of ex-googlers who would try to take it to the next level. Of course, they have the potential of doing that, FriendFeed actually rocks.

As of now, FriendFeed has confirmed that the site is going to run normally and not going to get integrated into Facebook, as expectations were around.

4. Twitter still needs to worry a bit – A social network, patching up with a real-time news aggregator. Its not an easy time for Twitter ahead if Mark is clever enough to build something interesting with 2 sites together, and you would see content craving people running away from twitter.

5. Should twitter go into the hands of someone?
Facebook = Yes
Google = No
Google has always failed to display something good out of the products or services that it has acquired and Twitter would see no future in itself if it decides to join Google. But if Facebook extends its hands towards Twitter, still after this major step taken already, Twitter should go for the deal.
Best way: Twitter stays independent. It looks beautiful independently, and should try to get with its revenue model ASAP and start making money out of itself, rather than selling off.

Bret Taylor, FriendFeed co-founder said -

“Facebook and FriendFeed share a common vision of giving people tools to share and connect with their friends, We can’t wait to join the team and bring many of the innovations we’ve developed at FriendFeed to Facebook’s 250 million users around the world.”

*** He also said -

The basic idea is that Facebook doesn’t want to disrupt the product…they’ll take a lot of ideas that work well on Friendfeed and see how they apply to Facebook, and over time they’ll look at how to integrate the products.

And this is what everyone wants! FriendFeed should remain the same, or get integrated in such a way that does not disappoint anyone.

Good luck Facebook and Friendfeed, to screw Google.