Oracle += Vitrue

Once again social media marketing companies are on the move.  The latest company to get on the list is Vitrue.  TechCrunch reported that Vitrue got acquired by Oracle for $300 million.  This follows earlier acquisition of  Efficient Frontier by Adobe for around $400 million back in November of last year.  Efficient Frontier acquired Context Optional in May of last year for $50 million.

As big companies choose acquisition route to get into their social media marketing business, social media marketing industry is getting consolidated.  Already social media company list below has lot of acquired former players shown in red dotted rectangle.  Vitrue will be the latest one to be added.

This list feels already outdated;
look out for more companies to enter social media marketing space.

There are still several social media marketing solutions.  Oracle's acquisition announcement will prompt other enterprise software vendors to start looking at remaining players in the space.  I would not be surprised by other companies getting snatched up by other tech giants in the space in the second half of 2012.

But the track record of small and nimble companies surviving the acquisition to continue to iterate on their product is abysmal.  In the fast moving social media market, having that extra layer of process and management will be detrimental to maintaining competitive edge over other companies.

At the same time this is a good news for those of us who are in social media space.  It affirms that Oracle agrees that there is a market for social media marketing platform, and that is a good thumbs up for enterprise adoption of social media.