They say that Facebook’s major focus this year is on mobile. That’s apparently where it’s acquisition of Seattle-based Rel8tion LLC fits in – except that we don’t really know much more about the company, other than the fact that it has been working on hyper-local mobile advertising for nine months.
Facebook itself makes no claims about the company’s progress, only saying that it considers the acquisition a “talent acquisition.” It also says that the company will join its growing Seattle office.
According to AllThingsD, Founder Peter Wilson, formerly with Google, has been consulting with Facebook on setting up the Seattle office and will now be an engineering director. Other founders include Scott Hannan, a VP at Pelago, which runs Whrrl, a mobile social net; and Nat Brown, a former VP at MySpace in Seattle and CTO iLike.com.
Facebook’s Maz Sharafi, who leads its Local Monetization effort, is keynoting at ILM East in Boston March 21-23.