AOL is Getting Serious About Lifestreaming: Buys SocialThing
SocialThing, a lifestreaming/social aggregation site, has been acquired by AOL. We currently have no information about the final price of the acquisition, but given that SocialThing was still in private beta, we assume that it was relatively low.
Context & Ripple Effects
AOL had already signaled a broader social-media buildout, combining Bebo, AIM and ICQ in a People Networks unit after its $850 million Bebo purchase. The purchase of SocialThing adds aggregation technology to that portfolio rather than another standalone social destination.
The deal also follows AOL’s purchase of Sphere’s blog-content engine in April, extending an acquisition strategy aimed at organizing and distributing users’ social and publishing activity.
First-order effects
- AOL gains SocialThing’s lifestreaming and social-aggregation product, giving its People Networks portfolio a way to assemble activity from multiple services.
- SocialThing moves from private beta into AOL’s product organization, where its technology can be deployed alongside Bebo, AIM and ICQ.
Second-order effects
- AOL’s social properties gain a stronger reason to centralize users’ activity feeds, increasing pressure on standalone aggregation services to secure distribution or differentiate their products.
- The value of AOL’s Bebo, AIM and ICQ grouping becomes more dependent on product integration: aggregation is useful only if AOL can connect identity, activity and audiences across those services.
Third-order effects
- The transaction points to social platforms competing not only for membership but for the interface that collects a user’s activity across networks; acquisitions become a shortcut to that capability.
- If large portals continue assembling social products through deals, independent social tools may increasingly be valued for integration technology and user data flows rather than as destination sites.
The trend: AOL is using acquisitions to assemble a connected social-media stack spanning publishing, messaging, networks and aggregated activity.