Mountain View, California — Google’s major thrust to intensify its foothold in the social media world is well underway. The search engine giant Google over the weekend acquired “PostRank“, a web company that helps users find, read, and measure online social network engagement with news and articles for users and advertisers.
The announcement was made on PostRank’s blog, a startup whose application culls through social media to disambiguate signal from noise. The move is Google’s latest play to challenge Facebook in social software.
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
PostRank’s technology offers data services — APIs that scans the web in real-time for “social engagement events” like comments and tweets so brands and publishers can analyze how influential their content is online, as well as it offers consumer-oriented tools, and a service called Connect, which connects brands and agencies with influential online publishers.
As yet, Google seems to be aligning itself around +1 icon and social search, as it slowly evolves a presence in social media networking.
ReadWriteWeb, a technology blog, which utilizes PostRank, explained that users may plug in any RSS feed to PostRank, which counts each post in that feed by the number of comments, inbound links, mentions on Twitter, saves on Delicious and other social media metrics. Users may then set up a filtered feed of the most-discussed items.
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When inquired as to how Google plans to leverage PostRank, a spokesperson responded: “We are always looking for new ways to measure and analyze data, and as social analytics become increasingly important for online businesses, we are excited to work with the PostRank team to make this data more actionable and accountable.”
Moreover, publishers pay for PostRank’s data services and analytics to get an understanding of not only where their content is being employed and by whom, but what is being said about their rivals. Companies such as Jive Software and Salesforce.com provide similar filtering services at a much more serious level for larger enterprises.
“Conversations online are an essential signal for advertisers, publishers, developers and consumers alike — but today’s tools only skim the surface of what we think is possible,” wrote PostRank CEO Carol Leaman and CTO Ilya Grigorik in a blog post.
“We understand that making sense of social engagement data is essential for online businesses, which is why we have worked hard to monitor where and when content produces meaningful interactions across the web,” PostRank’s Grigorik wrote in a blog post. “In fact, conversations online are an important signal for advertisers, publishers, developers and consumers — but today’s tools only skim the surface of what we think is possible.”
“We are extremely excited to join Google,” Grigorik added. “We believe there is simply no better company on the web today that both understands the value of the engagement data we have been focusing on, and has the platform and reach to bring its benefits to the untold millions of daily, active Internet users.”
The four-year-old company is based in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, but will soon move its team to Google’s Mountain View, Calif. headquarters, Leaman and Grigorik, said in a blog post, further added that because Google understands the value of social media engagement, the search giant will help PostRank expand its purview to millions of Web users.
That sounds a lot like Google will put the PostRank team on its Google Analytics team, appears to be an indication of the effects of social media on Google’s long-term strategy, if not its immediate business. The PostRank buy is just the latest example of Google putting its money where its mouth is in tackling the social space.