After withdrawing from Wave development, Google is now aiming to create waves in social networking sites. Google has finally signed and sealed the deal to acquire Slide. This acquisition will help Google deliver services with enhanced social relevance.

Slide is a well-known social application company that was established on Aug 1, 2005 by PayPal co-founder Max Levchin. Until the Google acquisition, Slide was engaged in making games, widgets and social-media applications to help people express themselves with web-freedom. The company had generated a stir in 2006, when it allowed its users to auto-insert slide shows into their MySpace pages. The decision helped them acquire about 117 million unique monthly viewers. Besides, it was getting more than 200,000 new Slide Shows into their network each day. Some of the notable examples of Slide products of the pre-Google era include FunSpace, SuperPoke and Top Friends on Facebook and Slideshow and FunPix on MySpace. Friendster is also graced with the Slide products.

News of the acquisition had been blowing in the wind for some time now; so, it was not a surprise when the deal finally closed on Friday at $182 million with an additional $46 million for employee retention bonuses.

After acquiring Slide, Google is now well equipped to counter Facebook, says a social media expert. Besides the Slide acquisition, Google has also invested in Zynga recently to fine tune Google Games and hired Mark DeLoura as “Developer Advocate, Games at Google” in April this year. All such acquisitions and recruitments clearly signify Google’s intention of building a strong social media platform that may compete with well-established Facebook. Going by the media speculation, a Google and Facebook war is imminent on the last word in social networking sites.

With Google Me, Google’s new social avatar, joining Slide’s founder Max Levchin on Google payroll will accelerate latter’s arrival in social networking field. Google Engineering Director David Glazer has indicated that Google will “be investing even more to make Google services socially aware and expand these capabilities,” for Google’s users across the web.

“Google is committed to building new, open and better ways for users to connect with others,” Levchin endorses in an open letter. “At Slide, we have been focused on building online communities that foster self-expression, creativity and engagement across multiple platforms. Given our shared vision and values, this is a tremendous opportunity for the two companies to come together to change the way people socialize on the web.”

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