Facebook has acquired Helsinki-based fitness tracking app Moves in his next step of its plan to dominate the mobile Internet.
image article 9 - Facebook buys fitness tracker Moves
Moves app follows the distance the user walks or runs alongside the amount of calories burned. The sensors collect data on whether the user is walking, cycling or running, how many calories he has burned and his actual location. Moves runs in the background of users’ phones, and can build up a daily activity profile of the user (when the user was at home, at work or in other locations and the time and distance between these destinations).
Developed by the Finnish start-up ProtoGeo, Moves was launched in January 2013 and since then it has been downloaded four million times. Facebook announced that key members of the Moves team will join Facebook at its headquarters.
“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” Facebook said.
ProtoGeo said that Moves will “continue to operate as a standalone app” and that there are no plans to “commingle data with Facebook”.
With Apple hoping to make fitness a key feature in its “iWatch” app, Facebook’s decision to buy an activity-tracking app comes at an interesting moment. Apparently, Apple is also working on an app called Healthbook, possibly to launch as part of its iOS 8 software later in 2014.
Facebook has already made two large acquisitions so far in 2014, the $19billion deal for WhatsApp and a $2billion acquisition of virtual reality headset maker Oculus. It also amassed a team of dronemakers from Somerset, England in their project Internet.org which connects the corners of the world to the internet.
Who can stop them?
 
Maria-Alexandra NASUI
Etudiante Master 2 Commerce Electronique à l’Université de Strasbourg