Facebook buys FriendFeed, eyes Google and Twitter

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Facebook has picked up FriendFeed for an undisclosed amount.

FriendFeed is a feed aggregating app, which lets users bring all their social networking sites together. So if you post photos to Flickr, a tweet to Twitter or write on your blog, it will all show up on your Facebook page.

Co-founder Bret Taylor said on the FriendFeed blog: "As my mom explained to me, when two companies love each other very much, they form a structured investment vehicle..."

No details of the deal were released, and both parties said the FriendFeed app would continue to operate as normal for the time being. "We're still figuring out our longer-term plans for the product with the Facebook team," Taylor said.

The plan likely includes real-time search, as Facebook unveiled a new search tool today as well. Making its search more timely could line up Facebook to take on Twitter or Google.

All of FriendFeed's 12 staff will move over to Facebook, with its four founders winning "senior roles on Facebook’s engineering and product teams".

Two of those founders are former Google engineers. Taylor helped develop Google Maps, while Paul Buchheit worked on Gmail.

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder and chief executive, said in a statement: "As this shows, our culture continues to make Facebook a place where the best engineers come to build things quickly that lots of people will use."

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