Oracle Buys Another Social Media Company: Involver

Oracle is upping its bet on social media. On Tuesday, the technology giant announced it is buying Involver, which will become part of its Oracle Cloud marketing platform.

Terms of the deal were not announced. Involver provides software tools so that companies can interact with users on such sites as Facebook and Twitter, through customized Web pages, responses to user comments, app creation via templates, or custom development.

Social Markup Language

Formed in 2007, the San Francisco-based Involver said that its clients include Best Buy, Toys "R" Us, MTV Networks, Sony Pictures and Coach.

Involver is best known for its Social Markup Language, or SML, which is designed for use by front-end developers with at least basic HTML, CSS, and Javascript skills for creating social apps that include sharing buttons for Facebook, Twitter feeds, YouTube videos, coupons and other features.

SML takes care of interfacing with application programming interfaces, or APIs, as well as with databases and assets, so that apps do not need to be re-created if APIs or other interfaces change.

SML includes drag-and-drop tools and pre-built apps. In a posting on its corporate blog, Involver CEO Don Beck wrote Tuesday that the acquisition "is expected to create the most advanced and comprehensive cloud-based social solution, across marketing, sales and service touch points."

He added that Involver's technology will extend "Oracle's social platform to help customers more easily and cost-effectively collaborate and build engaging applications and social experiences across social networks."

On its Web site, Oracle announced Tuesday that it had entered into the purchase agreement. The two companies, it said in a statement similar to Involver's, "are looking to harness the full potential of social media to increase brand loyalty, connect with potential customers and anticipate buyers' needs."

Virtrue, Collective Intellect

Involver is the latest of Oracle's social media-related acquisitions. In May,...