Internet giant acquires entertainment sites SayNow, fflick, giving it the power to filter certain chat topics online.Fflick, a company which monitors Twitter and Facebook comments made about movies in a bid to redirect bloggers to other films they may like, has just been bought by Google, who will likely seek to harness the film filtering tool for its video broadcasting site YouTube.
This now further increases the web hegemony of the Internet ruler who already has massive web monitoring ability and means any conversation taking place in social media forum could be further harnessed for commercial ends by the company in the future.
From a Google point of view, Fflicks biggest asset is its technological know-how and sentiment analysis engine, which they are said to channel for other areas of its business.
Just six month old, the company was founded by four ex Digg employees.
The deal was said to be worth US$10 million.
“As part of YouTube, the fflick team will help us build features to connect you with the great videos talked about all over the Web, and surface the best of those conversations for you to participate in,” YouTube said in a blog.
“There are great conversations happening all the time off of YouTube.com, and that commentary has the potential to enrich your experience when watching and discovering video on YouTube,” said group product manager Shiva Rajaraman.
SayNow, their other acquisition announced this week, is another tool used on social media, which integrates voice messages and conversations into Facebook and Twitter, as well as Smartphones on Android and the iPhone.
The move is seen as the latest attempt to make further headway with Google Voice as well as inroads into social media platforms.
Facebook, valued at $500bn, is currently worth more than its rivals Google, who could be seeking to use their rapidly growing forums to their advantage.
“SayNow will work closely with the Google Voice team, but we don’t have any specific plans to announce at this time,” a Google spokesperson told eWEEK.
“We are impressed by the services they have already built, and we look forward to working together to expand our voice-based technologies that better connect people.”
