Google Goes Shopping….Again

IN ITS CONTINUING EFFORTS TO CONTROL THE UNIVERSE, Google has purchased still another social-networking provider, this time a newbie called Jaiku.  It’s a Finnish firm that has also incorporated its own text messaging network.  They only came online in July of 2006 and have apparently hit the jackpot already. 

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After all, isn’t that the way it’s supposed to work?  You come up with an idea, spend a year writing the program, get it up and running online, then sell it to Google for $200 billion.

CNet adds:

Google’s social-networking moves have been puzzling and somewhat erratic. Mobile social-networking service Zingku said late last month that Google was acquiring its assets.

“We have signed a deal to purchase Zingku as well, although that transaction has not closed,” a Google representative said.

And in 2005, Google acquired social-networking service Dodgeball, which enables people to link up using text messages sent to mobile phones. But the company never really did anything with it, and the founders left in disgust in April.

There’s also speculation that Google may be testing its own virtual world with students at Arizona State University. Meanwhile, Orkut, Google’s internally developed social network, has failed to gain traction in the United States, although it’s big in Brazil.

Many industry insiders think that Google is positioning to build its own mobile phone that will carry all of the proprietary messaging features.  Using the existing Jaiku system, you can maintain your own personal blog from your handset.  Another Jaiku feature is its “smart address book” which pinpoints where your contacts are by locating whichever cell tower is covering them, even if you’re not talking to them on the phone.

internetnews.com has MORE.