Watch Out Facebook: Google Social Media Plot Thickens With Angstro Buy

Google's string of social media focused acquisitions plodded on this week with the purchase of Angstro, a service that tracks down data on friends and contacts based on their statuses on social networks.

In a note on the front page of Angstro's Website, company founder Rohit Khare shared the news of the acquisition and noted that he will join the Google team as part of the acquisition.

The terms of the deal were not disclosed on Friday.

"While our work here may be done, the struggle for open, interoperable social networks is still only just beginning, and I'm looking forward to working on that in my new role at Google," Khare wrote on the Angstro Website.

Angstro launched in 2008 as a Website that aggregated content across blogs, news sites and other sources to find information related to people searches know and work with, a sort of Google Alerts on steroids.

A year later, Angstro, Palo Alto, Calif., and Khare launched Knx.to, a search engine capability and API that lets users look up the information friends and contacts posted to their Facebook, Flickr, LinkedIn and other social media profiles.

It is likely that Angstro and Khare have been scooped up by Google as the search giant looks to round out its social networking platform, Google Me, according to a L.A. Times report.

The Angstro buy continues a hot and social media-focused buying spree for Mountain View, Calif.-based Google as the company looks to sharpen its social media chops to compete with the likes of Facebook.

Last week, Google acquired Like.com, a visual search engine and online retailer. The Like.com purchase followed Google's acquisitions of Slide Inc., which develops social networking entertainment applications, and Jambool, maker of a virtual currency platform.