Facebook Catches Hot Potato

Wade Roush8/20/10

Brooklyn, NY-based Hot Potato today confirmed rumors that it’s the latest acquisition target at Palo Alto, CA-based Facebook. Hot Potato launched last fall with an iPhone app that allows users to “check in” to an activity or event, such as a sports game, and converse with other people about the same activity. Those features overlap heavily with the new Facebook Places platform, and the acquisition is mostly like a talent grab on Facebook’s part, given that Hot Potato has already said it will wind down operations and delete all user accounts within the next month. The startup had backing from a long list of investors such as RRE Ventures, First Round Capital, Founder Collective, General Catalyst, and angel investors Ron Conway and Dave Morin.

Wade Roush is Xconomy's chief correspondent and editor of Xconomy San Francisco. You can e-mail him at wroush@xconomy.com or follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/wroush.