Google's social buying spree

• Google's new social networking strategy

A week after buying Slide, Google purchased virtual currency company Jambool.

Jambool makes a product called Social Gold, a kind of fake money that game developers can sell online. Users can trade their virtual currency to buy in-game items that help them advance in the game.

Social Gold competes with Facebook's Credits. One of the big questions for competitors in the social networking field is how their business can be monetized, so Jambool -- whose business is money -- is nice asset for Google to have.

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