Google is continuing to invest in online companies and gather all the technology it needs in order to release the rumored Facebook killer, Google Me. If you thought that too much time went by since Google’s latest acquisition last week, you were right. Last week Google acquired Slide. According to the latest rumors, it looks like this week Jambool, the developer of a virtual currency platform called Social Gold is the next addition to Google’s list of acquisitions. TechCrunch reports that the purchase price is $55 million and another $15-$20 million in earnout.
The Social Gold platform allows developers to use and create currency systems and monetize through in-game payments. On top of that Social Gold also offers analytics about the economy. Developers generally pay between seven and ten percent per transaction while their users buy currency with a credit card. Some of Zynga’s games like Mafia Wars make use of Jambool’s virtual economy platform at the moment. While the Zynga games hosted on Facebook use Social Gold, Facebook has a virtual currency system of its own which is called Facebook Credits. Social Gold and Facebook credits are very similar from many points of view, so if you’d like, you could consider that Google has just bought itself nearly the same virtual economy system that Facebook already has, adding yet another piece to its future social networking site puzzle. Jambool was founded by Vikas Gupta and Reza Hussein, both Amazon veterans. The company managed to raise $6 million in funding.
If this rumor proves to be true then this would be Google’s eighteenth acquisition this year. For those who are interested Google has already bought the following companies in 2010 : Aardvark (social search service), reMail (e-mail search), Picnik (an online photo editing service), DocVerse, Simplified Media (online music service), Episodic (online video platform start-up), PlinkArt, Agnilux, LabPixies, Bump Technologies, Global IP Solutions, Simplify Media, Invite Media, ITA Software, Metaweb, Instantiations and Slide.com (social networking game developers). Out of this whole bunch of companies Google will definitely gather up all the relevant technology and information that should serve them quite well in building a social networking site. Why is Google’s acquisition of Jambool an almost sure thing? Well, at the end of last week the same types of rumors were pointing to Google’s acquisition of Slide. The company refused to comment, as it’s doing now. Still a while later the search engine giant announced the acquisition of Slide officially through its blog.
On top of all these companies that now belong to Google, the company has also invested over $120 in Zynga (the developers of Mafia Wars, Farmville). At this point it’s crystal clear that Google is very interested in making a move in social gaming. If Google did acquire Jambool, I guess we’ll find out in the next couple of days.
