Why the FriendFeed Acquisition is a Defensive Measure Against Google Wave

FriendFeed is a platform for real-time sharing. You can post to your feed by sms via Twitter, Facebook, and others; directly via Web; by bookmarklet, API, email, xmpp (Google Talk) or any rss/atom feed. While FriendFeed never made it past early adoption, many of the features that percolated from it were copied to Facebook and Google Reader. Google Wave is an initiative to build a platform that brings together GMail, Google Talk, Reader, Youtube, Blogger, Latitude and real-time sharing into one social media platform. If Google succeeds in launching a compelling application, it has the traffic to overtake Facebook in the social media arena. Facebook saw the value in FriendFeed's proof-of-concept. By acquiring FriendFeed's talent, they can incorporate cutting edge features into Facebook, increasing the cost of switching. Facebook's goal, in my opinion, is to squash Google Wave before it gets off the ground.