This image was lost some time after publication.

Blogoscoped's Phillip Lessen found a month of spare time — or however long it took to pull together 1,940 words — and wrote a post to explain "Why Google buys companies." If you're building anything that has a shot at getting scooped up by Google, you won't have time to read it. So here's a version for you:

They buy to get more data, users, technology and developers.

  • In 2001, Google acquired Deja's usenet archive to get more data.
  • In 2003, Google acquired Pyra Labs/Blogger to get users, Kaltix for technology, developers.
  • In 2004, Google acquired a stake in Baidu out of political reasons, acquired Picasa for developers acquisition, acquired Keyhole for developer[s] and technology.
  • In 2005, Google snapped up Dodgeball to get developers.
  • In 2006, Google acquired YouTube [for] data and users, Neven Vision and Writely for technology and developers.
  • In 2007, DoubleClick. A good example of acquiring a user base. Google also acquired Gapminder's Trendalyzer and developers.

The chess master replied: "My favorite piece is whichever wins the game."