FriendFeed Buy Brings Google Experience To Facebook

Facebook's acquisition of FriendFeed will probably add a decidedly Google-like flavor to the social networking site and make it a stronger player in the face of Google's rumored interest in acquiring social networking companies like Twitter.

FriendFeed, which Facebook said Monday it will acquire for an undisclosed sum, was founded by four ex-Google employees who were involved in the development of Google Maps, the Google Maps API, Gmail, and Google Groups.

In fact, of FriendFeed's 11 full-time employees, eight worked at Google at some time in the recent past.

According to FriendFeed, they include co-founder Bret Taylor, who at Google helped launch Google Maps and the Google Maps API, and founded Google's Developer product group; Jim Norris, a former Google software engineer who helped launch Google Maps and worked on Google's core infrastructure team; Paul Buchheit, an engineer who worked on Gmail; and Sanjeev Singh, who at Google worked on Gmail and the Google Search Appliance.

Buchheit at Google was also responsible for Google's "Don't be evil" motto.

Other former Google employees at FriendFeed include Ana Yang, who led Gmail marketing for three years; Kevin Fox, who designed interfaces for Gmail, Google Calendar, Reader and other products; Tudor Bosman, who worked on Gmail; and Gary Burde, who launched Google Talk and Google's user profile service.

FriendFeed is an online sharing service that allows users to develop customized feeds made up of content that users' friends have shared. The service allows users to start conversations around shared items, contribute to shared streams, and subscribe to updates from individuals or groups sharing content of particular interest.

Prior to the acquisition, FriendFeed interfaced with Facebook as one of the venues through which users could share their content.

With FriendFeed, Facebook not only gains access to some of the developers of key Google technology, it also gains increased strength to resist the "Googlization" of social networking, especially given the interest Google has expressed in acquiring another top social networking site, Twitter.

Google this spring was rumored by multiple sources to be interested in acquiring Twitter.

Taylor, in a Monday blog post on FriendFeed, wrote that his company and Facebook share a common vision for social networking.

"Now we have the opportunity to bring many of the innovations we've developed at FriendFeed to Facebook's 250 million users around the world and to work alongside Facebook's passionate engineers to create even more ways for you to easily share with your friends online," Taylor wrote.

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