Last September, there were talks that Google was going to acquire Katango, which is a startup funded by Kleiner Perkins. Now Google announced that it officially purchased the company and will be part of its Google+ team. Google is interested with the company’s technology.
Katango’s product was initially focused on Facebook but it could be tweaked so that it would work with Google+. It first launched an iPhone app last July where it made it easier to share content with a select group of friends on Facebook.
While Facebook’s List feature allowed users to share content with various friends, it didn’t automate the process of placing friends into different groups. Katango can connect with Facebook and it would analyze the friends and automatically sort them into various subgroups.
The n in September, Facebook unveiled its Smart Lists, which would automatically group friends into lists. It has pre-built lists, such as coworkers and people living nearby. It has a suggestion feature that made it easier for people to build custom lists.
Google+ has Circles, which is a feature that the search giant has promoted heavily. But it couldn’t automatically sort friends into different circles. It looks like Katango would fit right at home with its technology.
