A fitness tracking app is the new addition to Facebook’s ever-increasing portfolio of purchases.
Helsinki-based ProtoGeo created the Moves app, reached 4m downloads on iPhone and Android. The activity-tracking app uses location data to build up a profile of the user’s activities throughout the day and calculates calories burned. The app will keep running as a standalone service for now, but it’s a significant move for the social network into the growing health technology market.
It was not revealed how much Facebook paid for ProtoGeo, which has less than 10 employees, but apparently is a fraction of the price it has paid for more high profile firms.
Other recent purchases include mobile messaging firm WhatsApp at the cost of £11.3bn and Oculus the virtual headset maker for VR for £1.1bn.
The fitness firm announced the news in their blog: “Today, we’re delighted to announce that Facebook has acquired our company and the Moves app. Since we launched Moves, we’ve been focused on running a simple and clean activity diary that millions of people have enjoyed using.” They reassured its users about the purchase saying “For those of you that use the Moves app – the Moves experience will continue to operate as a stand-alone app, and there are no plans to change that or co-mingle data with Facebook.”
Meanwhile Facebook commented on its newly purchase: “The Moves team has built an incredible tool for the millions of people who want to better understand their daily fitness activity, and we’re looking forward to the app continuing to gain momentum.”
Many of the large technology firms are keen to get involved with health technology, as its increasingly popular and a lot of money to be made from. There are already a range of fitness features on devices and wearables such as smartwatches on the market already.
Lets see what the next big move in health technology will be…
