• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, March 7, 2012

LinkedIn Wednesday confirmed its acquisition of startup Rapportive, which makes a browser plugin for Gmail that provides contextual information about email contacts.

“Rapportive does a great job at delivering relevant information in a platform that is universally used by professionals – email. It's very much in line with LinkedIn's mission to make professionals more productive and successful in their careers,” stated Hani Durzy, LinkedIn’s director of corporate communications, in a statement.

The AllThingsD blog last month first reported on the deal being in the works, citing unnamed sources. Rapportive’s software overlays the social networking accounts of email correspondents on top of the Gmail interface so a user can see someone’s most recent status update and mention it in an email reply. A user could also add someone to their LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter network if the Rapportive display showed they weren’t already connected on one of the social properties.

Rapportive CEO Rahul Vohra said in an email sent out Wednesday the company “will continue to build beautiful products that make you brilliant with people.” Beyond that, he offered few details on how the company would be integrated with LinkedIn.