Terms of the deal have not yet been revealed, but SayNow on Tuesday disclosed the acquisition in a statement on its Web site, said that it was “excited to announce that we have been acquired by Google.”
The note further said it would merge our forces with the Google Voice team. “We are fascinated by the services they have already built, and we look forward to working together to expand our voice-based technologies that better connect people,” it said.
Based in Palo Alto, California, SayNow’s platform supports applications used by celebrities and sports figures to communicate with groups. The company’s technology enables voice messaging, one-on-one conversations, and group calls to be instantly integrated into Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Android, or iPhone applications. For instance, the musical artist Souljaboy used a SayNow phone number to let fans listen to his voice messages, potentially talk to him and interact with each other. SayNow says that the Souljaboy phone number is the most called seven-digit phone number ever.
Briefly describing the deal on its website, SayNow’s co-founders stated, “Through the web, smartphones, and even land lines, our products brought communities together through the power of voice. And as Google has some of the best voice products in the world, we believe combining forces with the Google Voice team will let us innovate in new and uncharted areas.”
According to the SayNow website, the company set out to devise “voice-based experiences that are fun and social” — a goal akin to those of many current startups like Fotobabble and Twaud.io. However, SayNow mentions that the development did not stop with social audio apps. “Along the way, we reinvented the way phone calls are made today.”
That last statement places SayNow in direct competition with Google Voice, making the company a prime target for acquisition.
The Palo Alto, Calif.-based startup, which was founded in 2005, boasts 15 million users — including thousands of celebrities like Soulja Boy and NFL coach Mike Ditka — and just like Google Voice, its platform can be used for voice messaging, user-to-user conversations, and group calls. The company has released APIs and claims a robust ecosystem of third-party apps.
Furthermore, the technology from SayNow will join other phone technologies at Google. In addition to its Android mobile operating system, the company offers Google Voice, a service that lets people combine multiple lines under one phone number and one voicemail box. Google recently allowed people to port their existing mobile phone numbers to become their primary Google Voice number. Previously, Google would assign users a new phone number.
However, there is no information yet on whether SayNow will be shuttered or whether product development will continue, but it is unimaginable that the former Google Voice competitor will be operating as an independent product for very long following the acquisition.
“We have no specific product plans to announce at this time, but we will have more to say about our roadmap as we integrate with Google, so stay tuned,” the note said.
Interestingly, just before disclosing plans to step down as CEO of Google, Eric Schmidt penned a column in the Harvard Business Review noting that all of Google’s goals for this year are mobile-related.
This latest acquisitions comes as Google intends to engage more than 6,200 employees this year — strengthening its work force by at least a quarter — in an astronomical expansion yet by the Internet’s most profitable company.