• CNet, Friday, August 6, 2010 1:51 PM

Confirming earlier reports, Google says it has indeed acquired Slide, a social-media startup founded by PayPal vet Max Levchin. "We're working to develop open, transparent, and interesting (and fun!) ways to allow our users to take full advantage of how technology can bring them closer to friends and family and provide useful information just for them," Google engineering director David Glazer wrote in a blog post. "Slide has already created compelling social experiences for tens of millions of people across many platforms, and we've already built strong social elements into products like Gmail, Docs, Blogger, Picasa, and YouTube.

As the Slide team joins Google, we'll be investing even more to make Google services socially aware and expand these capabilities for our users across the Web." Meanwhile, "Google's attempts to make inroads in social networking ... have thus far been only lukewarm in their success," notes CNet. "Early reports of the Slide acquisition had suggested that it would be focused on social gaming." Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but reports put the price tag at $182 million. To date, Slide had raised a total of $78 million in venture capital from Founders Fund, Khosla Ventures, and T. Rowe Price, among other investors.

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