AOL buys Thing Labs, maker of Brizzly social software, for undisclosed amount

AOL buys maker of Brizzly social software

NEW YORK — AOL Inc. said Tuesday that it bought Thing Labs Inc., which created online social software Brizzly, for an undisclosed amount.

Brizzly is an online service that lets users see posts to Facebook and Twitter; Thing Labs has also created other Brizzly services like Brizzly Picnic, which enables group chat.

Internet company AOL said it plans to eventually add some of Brizzly’s features to some existing products like its AOL instant messaging service, known as AIM, and Lifestream social network content aggregator.

Brizzly’s management will become part of AOL’s consumer applications group. Thing Labs founder and CEO Jason Shellan and vice president of product and engineering Christopher Wetherell will take charge of the AIM group of products, AOL said.

Thing Labs is based in San Francisco.

AOL also said Tuesday that it agreed to buy technology blog TechCrunch and the other blogs in its network plus video syndication service 5min Media. Financial details were not disclosed for those two deals either.