AOL has suddenly become more serious in the world of social media, they recently introduced AIM BuddyUpdates which allows AIM users to see all their current buddies lifestream updates on the web, but it seems that was not a big enough jump into the market for them and they have also purchased SocialThing.

SocialThing is a social media and lifestreaming app that allows users to aggregate all of their other social sites such as Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, Pownce, YouTube and more into one location. It is also a competitor to a similar site called FriendFeed, which at least from my perspective seems to have many more loyal users. It should be interesting to see what, if anything AOL does to turn that around.

Some reports are suggesting that AOL may have been more interested in the team behind SocialThing and not as interested in the site itself, which means this may be integrated with their new BuddyUpdates.

As of now, something that is very typical with these acquisitions, there has not been any information released about the final purchase price, although speculation is that price was low.

SocialThing was initially launched in 2007 and is still in a private beta, which means that it requires an invitation. However if you ask nicely, at least the first twelve people anyway, we have a few to give away, simply send an email to john@blorge.com and we will get back to you.

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Entry was posted on Saturday, August 2nd, 2008 at 4:36 pm under Social Media.

Read more entries by Robert Nelson.
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