Facebook Acqui-hires Storylane

In what has become known in the industry as an “acqui-hire,” Facebook has acquired the team behind community storytelling platform Storylane.
 
Since its launch two years ago, Storylane’s mission has been to help people “build a more genuine online identity,” CEO Jonathan Gheller explained in a blog post on Friday.
 
Demonstrated by its latest News Feed redesign, Facebook is currently on its own mission to improve user engagement and keep consumers’ attention.
 
As such, Gheller said the merger makes perfect sense. “Facebook’s mission of connecting the world has always been at the center of our work, and like our friends at Facebook, meaningful connections are what our team is most passionate about,”  he explained on Friday.
 
Pushing ahead with a stand-alone strategy until the end, Storylane just recently launched an iPhone app for reading stories on the site. At last count, Storylane said some 200,000 stories had been shared on the service.
 
Beyond offering more immersive visual experience, Facebook’s recently retooled news feed also makes it easier for users to track individual feeds sorted by categories, including photos, music, all friends, close friends and games.
 
The site already provides some of these content-specific feeds on the left side of the page, but they have more emphasis in the new design.
 
Thanks to an aggressive mobile and ad strategy, Facebook recently reported a strong fourth quarter. Beating expectations, the company said it increased revenue by 40% from the same period a year ago.

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