Facebook has grabbed Hot Potato, a young Internet firm that lets people use smartphones to let friends know what they are up to at any given moment.
Hot Potato informed fans of the takeover on Friday; just two days after Facebook threw the switch on a new feature that lets US members of the social networking service share their whereabouts with friends while on the move.
“We’re excited to confirm that we recently acquired Hot Potato, a service that helps people socialize around live events and share what they’re doing with friends,” Facebook said in an e-mail.
“We’ve admired for some time how Hot Potato is tackling this space and look forward to working with them to bring Hot Potato innovations to Facebook,” Facebook added
Hot Potato about eight months ago launched a social networking service that lets users “check-in” to let friends know what they are thinking, watching, playing, attending, listening to or otherwise doing.
Hot Potato’s approach distinguished it from the growing field of location-based social networks such as Foursquare and Gowalla that let people check into places such as a specific restaurant, park or theater.
Whereas Foursquare might let people know a friend checked-in to a local pub, Hot Potato prompts users to complete thoughts including “I’m listening to” and “I’m thinking.”
The Hot Potato approach is reminiscent of a private-circle version of Twitter, the hot microblogging service that lets people share thoughts and moments at any time in the form of terse text messages.
“Since going live last November, we’ve been inspired and energized by your reaction to the service and people’s appetite for socializing around activities and live events,” the New York City-based startup said in a blog post. “If Hot Potato was going to sell to anyone, Facebook was the natural choice.”
The acquisition appeared to be another step in a vision by Facebook to become a collective memory of sorts, letting members tie their experiences and thoughts to locations for posterity.
A Facebook Places service that began rolling out in the US on Wednesday marked the firm’s hotly anticipated first step into “location-based” services that have been catching on with people who own smartphones equipped with satellite position tracking capabilities.
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