I don't get it. The NYTimes reports in Saturday's edition on Cisco's purchase of social networking provider FiveAcross, and adds that they're buying the tattered remains of Tribe.net, the San Francisco-based social network that fell out of favor and was reported to be the subject of an acquisition by NBC - a deal that was never completed.
The NYTimes calls the match up of a networking company and a dead community site a "curious pairing", which is understating it a little. We thought it slightly odd when Cisco bought up a white label social networking provider. But with a bit of explanation it made sense. Cisco wanted to provide the technology to its corporate clients - and more Internet traffic means more traffic over Cisco's routers, as VentureBeat eloquently explained.
The Tribe thing, though, just doesn't make sense to me: the tech is much less suited to a corporate rollout, and I can't imagine what else they'd do with it. Is Tribe's tech even compatible with that of Five Across?