Google buys social game developer SocialDeck
Still close on the scent of social networking companies to put into its social networking arsenal, Google has purchased yet another social-oriented company, this time social game developer SocialDeck.
It is quite apparent that Google is making a large push to get into the social networking arena in as large a way as possible, which to Google would mean challenging Facebook. Admittedly, the company’s efforts so far, such as their Wave service, have not exactly wowed the denizens of the social networking world. Wave was announced a year or so ago with great fanfare, but was recently shut down for lack of interest. Never a company to languish in the backwaters of an appealing marketplace, Google has been tracking down companies that offer social networking expertise and acquiring them (and their resources) in order to improve their chances in this field.
SocialDeck has created a number of games for the social networking market, games like Pet Hero, and Shake and Spell, and is considered to be an up-and-comer in the field, using its own proprietary “social-gaming platform technology.” Obviously, that technology belongs to Google now, giving them another leg up in the burgeoning social networking field. SocialDeck can now be added to the list of players in the social networking field that have been acquired in the last year. Most recently, just in the last few weeks, Google has acquired two other companies in social networking, Jambool and Slide, according to a CNET story.
No one knows exactly what Google has in mind for all of these social networking technologies, but it is unlikely to be small, whatever it is. It is clear that one of the largest business plan elements in social networking is the information about site members, and it is hard to think of anyone that has any more raw data on consumers than does Google. Given the offhand way in which Google sometimes treats that data, perhaps all of this should give us pause.
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