The tools and personell pickup is yet another one in its Social buying frenzy.
I don’t think a Friday has gone by this summer without Google (GOOG) announcing a pickup of some sort, mostly related to social networking.
Today’s haul is Angstro, a startup founded by Rohit Khare, a social and search expert. The move was announced on Angstro’s website and confirmed by Google today. Khare laid out the company’s investors and social creds..
With the help of investors like CommerceNet and advisors such as Avery Lyford, our team shipped apps to discover hot new photos on Facebook, improve Caller ID by using LinkedIn profiles, adding style and links to Twitter, create a real-time social address book, and a slew of other services (some of which are open source).
Google President of Engineering Vic Gundotra was instrumental in bringing Khare on board according to an LATimes source, telling Khare that Google was serious about Social. “He has built a lot of interesting pieces that would be useful to anyone building a social network,” the person said.
Angstro’s products can also be helpful in search, which can’t hurt Google.
A dollar figure wasn’t put on the purchase, but Google has been on a social spending spree this summer, picking up Slide, Jambool, Metaweb and Like.com in recent Fridays.