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Google pushes further into social networking, buys SocialDeck

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 1 min

In its effort to challenge Facebook, Google has become a social butterfly. The latest proof of that is Google’s acquisition today of SocialDeck, a maker of social games for mobile phones.

SocialDeck has made games such as Shake & Spell, Color Connect, and Pet Hero. Its games were downloaded about a million times in 2009. The company is based in Waterloo, Ontario. The purchase price wasn’t disclosed.

SocialDeck also makes a cross-platform tool for integrating social content across the BlackBerry, iPhone and Facebook platforms. Shake & Spell, notably, works on all of those platforms.

Google has been acquiring a variety of companies, such as Slide and Jambool, to compete with Facebook in social networking. It has also made a $150 million investment in social game leader Zynga. But SocialDeck’s products seem to line up best with Google’s interests in expanding the Android mobile operating system. Google has appointed Slide founder Max Levchin as its head of social networking.

Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat at VentureBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.