Google aims to further expand its involvement in the social apps area and so it purchased content sharing service Kifi.
The search engine company hired the team from the small startup, as they have experience with building extensions that collect and search links from social apps. Kifi also has the ability to recommend other links via the Kifi for Twitter tool, a feature that is based on deep learning.
Google is keeping mum on the specific details of the deal. However, thanks to a blog post by Eddie Kessler, Google's engineering director, we do know that Kifi's team will join forces with Google to improve the company's group chat app, dubbed Spaces.
It is unclear how many people from the original Kifi team will actually switch to the Spaces team.
It appears that Spaces is in a bit of a tight spot and can use the assistance.
Google rolled out the app earlier this year and it failed to get to the heart of consumers. In the United States, Spaces did not manage to get into the top 500 apps in the iOS App Store or in the top 250 in the Google Play store, which says something about its market success.
Keep in mind that the deal between Google and Kifi will be more like a takeover than a partnership. Kifi reports that it will keep running its service "for the next few weeks," after which it will only provide data exports "for a few weeks."
"The mission at Kifi has always been to connect people with knowledge," the team behind the app says in the Medium blog post.
Despite the fact that the app's days are numbered, the technology behind it will keep growing.
Seeing how Spaces currently focuses on group chat, it is entirely possible that Google will put Kifi's link sharing and link recommendation technology to good use there.
Kessler's post on Google+ explains the upcoming process. He commends the Kifi team for its "great expertise in organizing shared content and conversations" and notes that Spaces is expected to improve drastically due to its help.
Until now, Google has made almost 200 official acquisitions. Other notable elements include Google boosting up its social and apps team with the purchase of Pie, an app that resembles Slack. For a comparison and contrast between Slack and Google Spaces, check out our coverage.
Albeit small, the acquisition shows that Google is looking at expanding its services. The company's messaging and collaboration efforts have been unconvincing to many, and a solid Spaces app could give the company a much-needed edge.
