14 DAY TRIAL // Google has made another hire / acquisition and, yet again, the focus is on its upcoming Google Me social network. Google has acquired a startup, Angstro, according to a notice on the later's website, which will be shut down as the founder goes on to work for Google.
"Salim [Ismail] and I would like to thank everyone who was part of the adventure — not least, the thousands of users and beta testers who helped define our products and inspired our whole team," Rohit Khare, Angstro's founder, wrote.
"While our work here may be done, the struggle for open, interoperable social networks is still only just beginning, and I'm looking forward to working on that in my new role at Google," he added.
Angstro created a number of products focusing on search and social including "apps to discover hot new photos on Facebook, improve Caller ID by using LinkedIn profiles, adding style and links to Twitter, create a real-time social address book, and a slew of other services."
Angstro will now be shut down as the founder joins Google's team. He is said to be working on Google's, as of yet unannounced, but not entirely secret social networking project, Google Me.
Google has a very poor history when it comes to social networking services so it is trying very hard not ruin this latest attempt as well. It is now one of the biggest projects at Google and the company is putting its full resources and its best people behind it.
It is also making a number of strategic acquisition. Several recent buys were focused on the social network, specifically on the games side of it which will play a very important role, from the looks of it. Google recently acquired Jambool and Slide, two social gaming companies.