Google (GOOG), which competes with Microsoft (MSFT), Yahoo! (YHOO), Aol (AOL) and Facebook in the search advertising market, has been working to increase its penetration in social networking. It started with Google's foray into social applications like Google Wave and Buzz, which did not meet initial expectations. Google then made a number of acquisitions for the development of its major upcoming social networking project named Google Me.

Google (GOOG) has gone ga-ga over social-networking acquisitions, with deals for Slide, Like.com, Metaweb and Jambool. Desperately trying to go beyond its advertising business, the company sees big-time growth opportunities in the sector. However, Google is late to the game -- and its home-grown efforts have been lackluster, such as Buzz, Google Wave and Orkut.

Well, the latest social networking deal for Google is a tiny startup, Angstro. Actually, it's not a social network. Instead, the company has a system to pull information from various sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and so on. With this, Angstro can do things like improve Caller ID, as well as create a real-time social address book.