Just yesterday, Google was believed to have purchased Slide, an online entertainment company. While at the time it was pure speculation, there were many reasons to believe that the rumors were true. Google has come back to confirm its acquisition of Slide by announcing it on the Official Google Blog.
In today’s post Google announces that :” For Google, the web is about people, and we’re working to develop open, transparent and interesting (and fun!) ways to allow our users to take full advantage of how technology can bring them closer to friends and family and provide useful information just for them.”
For people who aren’t familiar with Slide’s services, Slide has contributed to several platforms with its products that were included in Gmail, Docs, Blogger, Picasa or YouTube, just to mention the ones that belong to Google. Facebook and Myspace also got some Slide love some time ago. The applications that Slide was providing before Google acquired it include: SuperPoke Pets, Top Fish, SPP Range and SuperPocus Academy of Magic.
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long with announcing that it has purchased Slide, Google also mentioned that it doesn’t have any detailed product plans to share at this moment but the company is quite excited to work together with Max Levchin (founder of Slide) and his team and provide better tools to communicate and connect to Internet users. Now rumor has it that Google is quietly working on a social networking site which is meant to compete with Facebook. What are the chances of Google actually planning to release such a site, which will probably be known as Google Me? Huge, actually. There were plenty of rumors before Chrome was released, just as many rumors about the Google phone, and both of the products were introduced to the market and are now used by a large number of people.
TechCrunch who was the first to inform regarding Google’s acquisition has also managed to estimate how much everyone got out of the deal. Reportedly founder Max Levchin (who invested about $7 million of his own money in Slide) got $39 million while BlueRun Ventures got $28 million. Another investor, Scott Bannister made $5 million. While Google didn’t make more details public, especially regarding the price of Slide, a source has disclosed that the purchase was worth $182 million.
So let’s sum up all the information again. Google is said to have invested a lot of money in Zynga, the company that invented Farmville, the popular game you can currently play on Facebook. The search engine giant also purchased Slide, who also contributed to the popularity of Facebook and Myspace. While it had some attempts at offering a form of social networking site, through its Buzz for Gmail service and Orkul, a site that’s somewhat popular in some countries, Google didn’t quite manage to offer something that could catch as many users as Facebook has so far. If Google were to stand a chance in challenging Facebook, the only way to do it was to carefully gather information and technologies and plan for a loud release.
