Google, Postrank and Social Engagement

A rather noteworthy acqusition took place last week - Google acquired Postrank, a software solution that measures user engagement with topics, brands, authors and content across a multitude of social media sites. The battle for social engagement has officially begun.

PostRank is used by many of the top brands in the world. The company's analytics data is becoming crucual for advertisers and publishers as they are able to receive valuable insights into how content and advertising are performing - or underperforming. 

Google announced the Postrank acquisition just days after the release of Google +1, its social annotation service. What Google gets from Postrank and its products are the ability to monitor and aggregate social media data. While it is likely that the functionality will be included within Google Analytics in short order, it is also likely that the technology will support Google's very public push into social. With Facebook threatening, Google has no choice but to buy into social in a big way and buy social technology companies like PostRank just to keep pace. 

"We're always looking for new ways to measure and analyze data, and as social analytics become increasingly important for online businesses, we're excited to work with the PostRank team to make this data more actionable and accountable. They have developed an innovative approach to measuring web engagement, and we think they can help us improve our products for our users and advertisers," Google said in a statement.