With the news of social media giant Facebook’s impending rise to the world of public trading comes big news of their acquisitions; namely, that of photo-sharing app Instagram last month for a cool billion, which turned more than a few heads and had people wondering what Mark Zuckerberg’s plan was.
Now the company has acquired up-and-coming location-sharing app Glancee, the biggest competitor for Highlight. Both mobile apps allow users access to information about anyone close by who also has the app on their phone. Glancee will be disbanding their team and some members–including their three co-founders-will be joining the Facebook team as the acquisition comes to a close. The terms of the deal haven’t been revealed, but Facebook announced their new buy in a statement:
“We are thrilled to confirm that Facebook has acquired Glancee. The acquisition closed today. We can’t wait for co-founders Andrea, Alberto and Gabriel to join the Facebook team to work on products that help people discover new places and share them with friends.”
It’s not hard to see why Facebook is scooping up mobile apps with huge potential; they’ve been working on getting their own mobile app more user friendly with several updates recently, and the acquisition of companies like Instagram–which was already well-known at the time of the purchase and had just been made available to Android users, which meant a huge surge in downloads–and Glancee means they are boosting their own mobile capabilities. That, in turn, will only help them in their move to go public.
The announcement brings about a lot of speculation, such as what a location-sharing tool like Glancee could mean for Facebook users in the future, especially in terms of check-ins. What do you think? Let us know in the comments section.