Google shows burning desire

Google has splashed the cash again - this time with the purchase of RSS feed distributor FeedBurner . Reports and rumours have mentioned figures around $100 million (£50.3 million), although no amount has been confirmed.

The purchase of so-called Web 2.0 property has now become a landgrab, largely propelled by Google. Google certainly sees something about FeedBurner that it feels it can make money out of - perhaps by giving advertisers ways to monetise their feeds by offering AdWord integration. The site already enables feed providers to embed advertising in their feeds.

"As you know, we're constantly looking for ways to identify and offer new tools for content creators and website publishers," said Susan Wojcicki, vice-president of Product Management at Google. "Likewise, we constantly aim to give AdWords advertisers broader distribution to an even wider audience of users. For these reasons, we're very pleased to tell you that we've just acquired FeedBurner."

Google's current strategy is clearly to spend some of its cash mountain. On 30 May, John Hanke, director for Maps, Earth and Local, wrote on Google's blog : "I am pleased to tell you that we've agreed to purchase Panoramio, a website based in Spain that links millions of photos with the exact geographical location where they were taken."

On the same day, we reported that US TV network CBS bought music-based social networking site Last.fm for $280 million (£142 million). And Fox bought photo sharing site Photobucket and video application Flektor to go alongside its ownership of MySpace.

Microsoft also recently announced its acquisition of online ad agency Aquantive.