FarmVille-maker Zynga buys Flock social browser for reasons unknown
In its eighth major purchase in less than a year, Zynga has acquired Flock, a social network browser that launched in 2005 to little fanfare and success, Gamesindustry.biz reports. Flock is a service that allows users to access their social networks while browsing other websites. A novel concept five years ago, but with the advent of things like Facebook Connect and the infamous "Like" and "Tweet" buttons everywhere the service fell by the wayside over the years. However, the company raised a total of $30 million in funding, which closed in 2008, according to TechCrunch. Flock CEO Sean Hardwin wrote this on the company blog in response to the acquisition:
I'm very excited to announce that the Flock team will be joining the social gaming phenomenon, Zynga... Flock's dedication to its products and users allowed us to achieve over 10 million users around the world with two products on the Facebook top 10 list of the most popular desktop apps... Our team will help Zynga in achieving their goal of building the most fun, social games available to anyone, anytime – on any platform.
According to TechCrunch, the engineering talent within Flock has been sought after by companies like Twitter and Google, and it appears that Zynga wants a piece of that for their games. It's currently unknown as to what the Flock team's role will be within Zynga nor how much the company paid, but with CEO Mark Pincus recently calling for a "dog-activated world" we've got a hunch. Zynga has been contacted for comment, stay tuned for updates.
What do you think this acquisition will mean for both Zynga and the Flock team? What does Zynga plan to do with this buy? Sound off in the comments. Add Comment.
