Facebook has acquired friend.ly. Terms of the acquisition have not been disclosed.
So, what is friend.ly? Aside from having a .ly domain that actually makes sense when you say it out loud, it’s basically a social Q&A service.
The official description is as follows:
Friend.ly is a place to explore friendships and discover people beyond the boundary of your social network. The best way to discover and meet new people, of course, is to talk to them, and there’s really no better conversation starter than a question. We have thousands of questions on friend.ly, many that are relevant to you and the people you find based on your Facebook profile and interests, as well as many questions about things you have probably never thought about before. No need to be bashful, time to have some fun making friends!
Answer questions, give compliments, and ask questions. Not only will you get to know your own friends better, but you might meet some new people too. The more answers you write, compliments you give, and questions you ask, the more you’ll learn about yourself and others.
In an announcement post on the friend.ly blog, the company says:
Weāre excited about this because weĀ feel the spirit of friend.ly aligns well with Facebookās vision, and weāreĀ thrilled to beĀ joining such an innovative company. The friend.ly team will beĀ focusing on new projects at Facebook, but friend.ly will continueĀ to operate asĀ a separate service.
We want to thank you ā from the bottomĀ of our hearts ā for sharing your hopes, your memories and your humor with theĀ friend.ly community. Thank you for your unwavering support of ourĀ product and your dedication to helping usĀ make it better. Thank you also to ourĀ investors and advisorsĀ for your invaluable advice and your faith in our team and ideas.
MG Siegler, who first reported the news, says that while the friend.ly team will be working on new projects at Facebook, the service itself will also remain open.
Earlier this year, Facebook revamped its own Questions product. Perhaps we’ll see more efforts in this area in the near future.