The engineer behind Canadian startup Acrylic said Friday that he was closing up his one-man shop and joining the design team at leading social network Facebook.<\/p>\n
Facebook confirmed that it has bought Acrylic in an “acqui-hire” that brings on board founder Dustin MacDonald, the creator of mobile gadget applications for newsfeeds and digital wallets.<\/p>\n
“Facebook is an invaluable service that we all use daily, and a company I believe is one of the most innovative and important around today,” MacDonald said in a blog post announcing his move to California.<\/p>\n
“After visiting late last year, I discovered that we shared many of the same core product design goals and principles, and it soon became obvious that it was a natural fit.”<\/p>\n
Acrylic’s best-known applications — Wallet and Newsfeed — were not acquired by Facebook in the deal. Buying promising startups for the talent and not its products has become common in the competitive Internet technology world.<\/p>\n
Facebook recently bought startups Spool and TagTile in “talent acquisitions” aimed at helping it stay in synch with users as they shift increasingly to using smartphones and tablet computers.<\/p>\n
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