Inside Facebook

It’s a good time to have a popular Facebook app.

I just spoke with Trey Philips, creator of the Extended Info Facebook application, who confirmed that travel company SideStep has acquired Extended Info and its 130,000 users for an undisclosed amount.

Philips, who just completed his third year at the University of Texas, has moved to Silicon Valley and will join SideStep and to work on Extended Info and new SideStep applications.

Extended Info received “more than a dozen” acquisition offers, “most in the same ballpark,” Philips said. “I chose SideStep because I think their current Facebook application, Trips, contributes something useful and unique to users, without being ’spammy’ – they seem focused on providing feature-rich applications, not just gaining users.”

SideStep made the acquisition to increase its reputation among Facebook users and gain expertise for developing future apps, Philips added.

Philips originally developed Extended Info in “a few hours” at last month’s F8 hackathon. Within four days, 60,000 users had signed up.

SideStep, an 80 person travel company, is also the publisher of the Trips Facebook application. Over 100,000 Facebook users have added Trips to their profile.

“A large part of the social web centers around self-expression and Extended Info allows Facebook users unlimited options for expressing themselves, said Rob Solomon, CEO of Sidestep.

“Our current app strategy is to identify concepts that are useful and map well to the travel needs of the Facebook audience. The F8 platform is pretty amazing and we want to spend the first few months experimenting to see what apps have long-term growth potential. We will continue building apps and will look to both acquire apps that map well to our strategy and hire talented app develpers to build next generation travel apps on top of the F8 platform.”

[tags]facebook,extendedinfo,acquires,sidestep,app,bought[/tags]