Facebook Shops for Talent to Fight Google, Social Web Competitors

by Clint Boulton

Facebook quietly picked up contact import software maker Octazen Solutions in February. Facebook called this a “talent acquisition.” The company’s two employees joined Facebook as engineers.

Divvyshot, whose software lets people upload photos to the Web, share them and edit them, followed in April, with co-founder Sam Odio joining to spruce up Facebook Photos.

Facebook nabbed ShareGrove, which makes private Web workspaces where groups can chat and share Web pages, photos and video clips within Facebook, in May. Co-founder Adam Wolff joined Facebook.

In July, Facebook picked up NextStop, which lets users share activities for fellow travelers. The company was created by Carl Sjogreen and Adrian Graham, formerly of Google. Sjogreen is now a product manager for Facebook Platform.

Also picked up in July, Hot Potato lets users create and share a stream of information about events and anything else. Co-founder Justin Shaffer later led the launch of Facebook Groups.

Although this acquisition was never confirmed, Facebook allegedly acquired semantic search startup Chai Labs in August. Chai was forged by former Google AdSense executive Gokul Rajaram, who is now working on Facebook Ads, according to LinkedIn. Maybe Rajaram is building an AdSense for Facebook?

Drop.io, which Facebook grabbed in October, is yet another private info-sharing service. Co-founder and CEO Sam Lessin, Zuckerberg’s Harvard buddy, joined Facebook.

Walletin, whose co-founders sold out to join Facebook in November, was in stealth mode when it was bought. No idea what it did but if I guess by the title it’s micropayment, or maybe mobile payments. Walletin co-founder Cory Ondrejka was the first chief technology officer of Linden Lab, developers of Second Life.

Facebook actually picked up three engineers who created ZenBe Mail and had them bake the new Facebook Messages, which launched last month.

We know it won’t be Foursquare, after Facebook launched Facebook Places and Deals to basically squash the startup. Take your best guess. Hopefully we’ll find out before the New Year.