Google acquires social media software platform Wildfire

Purchase follows similar acquisitions by Oracle and Salesforce.com earlier this year

Google has bought Wildfire Interactive, a social media marketing start-up that provides a platform for organisations to manage all of their social media output on one system.

The software is used to help companies run and measure their social engagement and advertising campaigns across the internet, and integrates with social media websites including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google+, Pinterest and LinkedIn.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. However, according to Reuters, a source has said that the deal is worth close to $250m (£159.9m).

Wildfire was launched in 2008 and is headquartered in Redwood City, California. It has offices in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, London, Munich, Paris and Singapore.

In a blog post, Google's product management director Jason Miller explained the rationale behind the acquisition.

"In a complex and changing landscape, businesses want to manage and measure [social] efforts in an integrated way. We've been working towards this end for some time," he said.

"With Wildfire, we're looking forward to creating new opportunities for our clients to engage with people across all social services. We believe that better content and more seamless solutions will help unlock the full potential of the web for people and businesses," he added.

A Wildfire blog post attributed to its co-founder Victoria Ransom and Alain Chuard said:

"We believe that over time the combination of Wildfire and Google can lead to a better platform for managing all digital media marketing. To this end, Wildfire will operate as usual, and there will be no changes to our service and support for our customers."

The acquisition follows similar investments by other technology vendors. In May, Oracle bought social marketing platform Virtue for $300m (£194m), and in June, Salesforce.com bought social media marketing firm Buddy Media for $689m (£447m).

Oracle then continued its summer software spending spree with the acquisition of social media platform provider Involver, for an undisclosed sum.