• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, August 7, 2009

Digital content network Atrinsic on Friday announced the acquisition of social-centric e-commerce startup ShopIt. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Shopit.com helps buyers and sellers complete transactions within popular social networks like Facebook and MySpace.

Existing versions of its application have been downloaded roughly 800,000 times, by the company's estimate, while it is planning to launch a new and simplified version with new tools for mobile use, "storefront" management, merchandising, payments and shipping, as well as tools for sellers to import existing listings from ecommerce sites such as eBay and Yahoo Stores.

"This acquisition fits perfectly with Atrinsic's continuing transformation into a cross-platform digital content and marketing services network," said Burton Katz, CEO of Atrinsic.

Social e-commerce is just now taking shape. Last week, 1-800-FLOWERS.com became the first retailer to launch a digital storefront on Facebook.

And just this week, payment platform provider oneTXT debuted a social-commerce transaction processing system named ORCA. Short for Optimized Real-Time Currency Application, the white-label open-source platform aims to help social media companies facilitate digital commerce by creating tools to process payments, manage loyalty programs, schedule advance orders of real and virtual goods, and send marketing messages.

ShopIt falls into Atrinsic's commerce and lifestyle product category, while other product categories include digital music, casual games and personal finance.

"The growing consumer demand for these types of rich applications across the traditional Internet portals, the social Web, and mobile media fits our business model exceptionally well and positions us to address and monetize a large and growing market," Katz added.

Formerly known as New Motion, other Atrinsic brands include GatorArcade, an online and mobile gaming site; Ringtone.com, a mobile music download service; and iMatchUp, an integrated web-mobile dating services.

In October, ShopIt announced that it had raised $2.5 million of a $7 million second round, which it used to launch an ad network.