In September 2009, Baltimore-based software company WhoGlue Inc. filed a patent-infringement lawsuit against Facebook. It claimed that Facebook “violated a patent awarded to WhoGlue in 2007 for an information management system to control personal information as human networks and technology increasingly mesh.” The lawsuit was settled, and in early November 2011, Hardebeck sold his tiny two-person company, which consists of him and a developer in Berlin, to Facebook for an undisclosed amount.
Facebook may have acquired WhoGlue, but according to a repot from The Baltimore Sun, Hardebeck bought back “some assets, trademarks and customer relationships from Facebook.” He has since renamed his company WhoGlue LLC.
This year’s Facebook acquisitions are just the beginning of what’s in store for the social media behemoth.
Last December, Facebook said that it would acquire 15 companies total in 2011, effectively doubling the speed of its acquisition pace. Thus far, Facebook has acquired all small companies, including WhoGlue, Friend.ly, Push Pop Press, Sofa, Daytum, Snaptu, Beluga and Rel8tion.
As Facebook makes its moves toward going public, ReadWriteWeb reporter Marshall Kirkpatrick says that the IPO could “mean more and bigger startup acquisitions, more support for more startups and an infusion of smart money and experience into radically new tech experiments.”
