Seattle-based social networking Web site called WebFives

Ahmad

Software giant Microsoft has revealed that they are acquiring a Seattle-based social networking Web site called WebFives. Under this deal, Microsoft will be acquiring the assets of WebFives.

However, the financial aspects of this deal are not yet known, neither have they been disclosed by any of the parties.

WebFives came about in 2004, and interestingly, was founded by a former Microsoft engineer, Mike Toutonghi under another name, ‘Vizrea’. The company offers social networking with a focus on mobile media, including video, music and photos.

Seattlebased social networking Web site called WebFives

WebFives users are provided with standard social networking profile pages complete with blogging features. They also have the option of accessing their sites via a computer or on a mobile via a WAP-specific page.

The Seattle Times featured a story which said that Toutonghi told WebFives users that the service would eventually stop by the end of this year due to the Microsoft acquisition. This would make the acquisition a technology buy as opposed to a community buy.

Toutonghi went on further to encourage WebFives users to sign up to MSN Spaces and/or Windows Live to continue their social networking experience.

Here is the actual letter that was published yesterday to WebFives users:

While WebFives has pioneered some great technologies, including automatic upload of content from mobile phones and PCs, high-quality video sharing services, and automatic RSS feeds for everyone, our next challenge will be to help Microsoft incorporate the best of those technologies into its already comprehensive suite of products and services. I encourage you to look at MSN Spaces and/or Windows Live services as an alternative to WebFives for serving your video, photo, music sharing, and blogging needs on the Internet.