LinkedIn has confirmed earlier rumors and announced a deal to buy news aggregation service Pulse. The buyout will cost LinkedIn $90 million; the company hasn’t announced many specific plans for its new holding, but says it wants to be the “definitive professional publishing platform,” where “professionals come to consume content and where publishers come to share their content.”
The Pulse iOS, Android, and web apps collect newsfeeds into a central location, and display them in a grid format, making it easier to browse and read web content. LinkedIn could be hoping to use the technology to improve LinkedIn Today, its own aggregation service. It may also want access to the publishers that have signed deals with Pulse, as well as demographic data, and the advertising money increased traffic at LinkedIn would generate.
One thing that has been confirmed is that the Pulse development team will eventually be relocated to LinkedIn’s headquarters in Mountain View, California. The Pulse apps will “continue to be supported as the integrated Pulse and LinkedIn teams work to build future generations of professional content consumption products.”
