Google announced on Friday that it has agreed a $182 million deal to purchase social networking company Slide. This is the latest plan for Google to gain some headway into the social networking market. Google has tried to break into the social networking market before, but poorly received versions of Orkut and Google buzz has meant that Google had to look at a more established company.
Slide already has a huge presence in the social media market including MySpace and Facebook and produces a number of social games such as SuperPoke, Rock Riot and FunSpace. The company was set up in 2005 by Max Levchin, co-founder of PayPal and originally offered photo sharing software that users could make picture slide shows with, which could then be embedded into websites, blogs and social networking sites like MySpace.
This latest deal comes after Google invested $150 million in social gaming giant Zynga, who produce popular games such as Mafia Wars and FarmVille and has a user base of 268 million worldwide. There has been a lot of talk about Google setting up its own social networking site to rival Facebook, rumoured to be called GoogleMe these latest deals could well add reality to the speculation.