- Date.
- 11 October 2011
- Publication.
- News
- Author.
- Sandy Fitzgerald
Facebook Buys Q&A Site Friend.ly
Facebook purchased Friend.ly, a two-year-old question-and-answer site that could add even more value to the social networking giant's efforts in connecting people.
Friend.ly, an app built for Facebook, asks random quiz questions that the social network's users can answer. The app also allows people to rate others' answers, helping them learn more about their friends and meet new people as well.
Friend.ly's app asks things like, "What is your favorite beverage?" or "Where would you like to go on vacation?" It encourages people to answer the questions and rank them, with some questions already getting tens of thousands of answers.
Friend.ly raised $5 million in investments this year from several companies, including Lightspeed Venture Partners, Balderton Capital, SoftTech VC and others.
Facebook frequently purchases start-ups such as Friend.ly to boost its online presence and add to its offerings. For example, in August, the Palo Alto, Calif.-based company bought San Francisco start-up Push Pop Press, a company that creates books for tablets and smartphones.
Facebook said it bought Friend.ly and Push Pot to use their technologies and ideas to help "millions of people connect and share with each other on Facebook."
Friend.ly may boost Facebook's advertising sales, too. The social network may use the app's questions and answers to target certain advertisers, lending even more value to the acquisition if the questions are aimed toward certain types of products, such as foods and drinks.
Friend.ly already has a huge following with 25 million users, most likely because it is a Facebook add-on.
App Data, however, says only about 300,000 of those users are active on a monthly basis, a huge drop from Friend.ly's 6.9 million active monthly users earlier this year.
Friend.ly Monday said its site will remain a separate service, but its team will continue working on new projects with Facebook.
Meanwhile, Facebook did not disclose the terms of the sale, but said it has "admired the team's efforts for some time now, and we're looking forward to having Ed and his colleagues make a big impact on the way millions of people connect and engage with each other on Facebook."
