Facebook has added to its acquisition arsenal with the purchase of messaging service Beluga.
Beluga and Facebook will work together on "new and better ways to communicate and share group experiences," Beluga said in a note on its Web site. "We're excited to continue to build our vision for mobile group messaging as part of the Facebook team."
Beluga is "group messaging made easy," the company said. The free app - available for iOS and Android devices - is intended to help friends stay in touch on the go. "Use it to plan a night out or just share updates and photos," Beluga said.
Beluga is the brainchild of three former Google execs. Prior to founding Beluga, CEO Ben Davenport helped build Google AdSense, president Lucy Zhang worked on Google AdWords, Google News, and Google Docs, while CTO Jonathan Perlow served as senior staff engineer at Google, working on Gmail, Gmail Chat, and Mail Goggles. Perlow also served as a development lead at Microsoft, while Davenport helped build MSN Explorer.
"For now, Beluga will continue to function as it does today," Beluga said. "Your Beluga account and data will not be lost. We'll be providing more details on future plans for Beluga in the coming weeks."
The Beluga app has location-based functionality, which could be a good fit for Facebook's Places location feature. Last month, Facebook also added a "shared deals" option for developers, meaning users could share information about discounts with others on Facebook.
Earlier this year, Facebook acquired mobile ad start-up Rel8tion to improve hyper-local ad targeting to its 200 million-plus mobile subscribers.
Last year, it also bought startup Chai Labs, online file service Drop.io, social check-in network Hot Potato, and recommendation engine nextstop.
