Google has acquired New Zealand-developed marketing start-up Wildfire in a hundred million dollar deal to help the world's largest internet search company expand further into social media.

Wildfire

New Zealanders Victoria Ransom and Alain Chuard founded the social media marketing company in 2008, as a side venture in marketing their NZ-based travel company. Wildfire provides software for brands and agencies to launch and manage social campaigns, create brand pages, monitor and message consumers and track how they're being perceived on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and other social networks. The company, now based in California, has about 400 employees and powers social media marketing for more then 16,000 businesses, including 30 of the top 50 global brands.

The Deal

Terms of the sale of Wildfire have not been disclosed but The Wall Street Journal tech website AllThingsD said the deal was worth about $US250 million ($238m). The website added that Wildfire was thought to have raised $14 million to develop their products over the past four years.

Google gets more Social

In a statement on its website, Google says it hopes the deal will provide better social marketing to its clients. “With Wildfire, we're looking forward to creating new opportunities for our clients to engage with people across all social services,” the tech giant's product management chief Jason Miller wrote. “It’s a platform for brands to manage their pages, apps, tweets, videos, sponsorships, ads, promotions and more, all in one place…the ultimate goal is better and fresher content, and more meaningful interactions.”

The acquisition of Wildfire continues a wave of consolidation in the social media sector, which has included Salesforce.com’s buy out of Buddy Media this year and social media monitor Radian6 in 2011. Google, meanwhile, acquired social sharing operation Meebo this year for an estimated $US100 million.