By SCOTT MORRISON
Google Inc. has bought social games start-up SocialDeck Inc., the latest in a series of acquisitions aimed at helping the Internet search giant build a social-networking service to compete with Facebook Inc.
The acquisition, coming just days after Google's previous social acquisition, was announced Monday on SocialDeck's website. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
The Canadian start-up has launched several games titles for Facebook, as well as Apple Inc.'s iPhone and Research In Motion Ltd.'s BlackBerry devices. SocialDeck's games platform technology enables simultaneous game play across multiple mobile devices and social networks.
The SocialDeck deal is one of several acquisitions in the past month through which Google hopes to build a social-networking service to counter Facebook, which recently topped more than 500 million users and is aggressively moving to develop its advertising business.
Google last week bought Angstro, which makes apps to discover new photos on Facebook, and create a real-time social address book. Earlier in the month it bought social widgets maker Slide Inc. in a deal that gave the search leader a team of developers with extensive social networking experience.
Google has been in discussions with top developers to offer their games on a new service it is building, according to people familiar with the matter. Those developers include Playdom Inc., Electronic Arts Inc.'s Playfish and Zynga Game Network Inc., these people have said.
Write to Scott Morrison at scott.morrison@dowjones.com
Read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703369704575462163232107420.html?mod=googlenews_wsj#ixzz0y8y8TRCa
No comments:
Post a Comment