Facebook has continued it’s rapid expansion to acquire internet startup Parakey in an attempt to bridge the divide between information stored locally and online. The acquisition is Facebook’s first in it’s remarkable 3 year history. Parakey aims to make consumer’s lives easier in this respect and was started by two of the co-founders of Firefox, Blake Ross and Joe Hewitt.
Parakey describes itself as “a platform that bridges the gap between information on the web and the desktop”. The cost of the takeover is undisclosed but it is believed that the two founders will help push Facebook deeper into Web 2.0 territory. A notice on Parakey’s site simply says:
Computers are frustrating. Creating documents, finding files, sharing information – why do everyday things still seem so tedious and counterintuitive? Give your computer the bird.
It’s probable that this move is part of Facebook’s plan to become a ‘platform’ more than a mere website as we wrote about a few months ago. Parakey’s experience will help the site manage the huge number of plug-ins and applications that users are developing every day pushing it ever closer to it’s goal.
