A company that was founded for the specific purpose of addressing one of Google’s weaknesses has now been acquired by the larger corporation. Angstro should help Google (and whatever sort of social network it’s building) distinguish between lots of results for a given name.
Angstro is shutting down due to the acquisition, and Google’s given no sign of when anything will resurface, so don’t count on being able to try the tech out for yourself in the near future. But the company’s search powers do sound impressive.
Angstro’s "About Us" section states, "Angstro represents the ability to hone in on highly focused, relevant news across professional networks. Where search engines such as Google and other news aggregator services have immense infrastructures that return a huge array of random results, Angstro analyses a wide breadth of information from multiple data sources to deliver very few, yet very intelligent results."
Also, the company’s created apps that interface with Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, which is a good sign in terms of its ability to handle social media.
As for what’s next, Rohit Khare, a cofounder of Angstro, didn’t discuss specific projects or new titles. He just wrote on the corporate blog, "[T]he 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."
Hat tip goes to Jessica Guynn.