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AOL had been eyeing the acquisition of the lifestreaming service, Socialthing a close competitor of Friendfeed. The deal had been shaping up since the star of this month and had been reported by us. However the present news has it that the deal has been confirmed (as reported by Caroline MsCarthy) and that the Socialthing team is asked to report to David Lui; SVP of AOL and GM of People Networks.

The team is said to incorporate into the People Networks division and the lifestreaming is to be integrated into various AOL properties; which include its Social Network and chat service, Bebo and AIM respectively.

The call comes at a pretty thunderous time for AOL itself as the company has had been shredding properties in order to bring budget into control but at the same time making sure it maintains the equality of its social assets and Socialthing comes off as a pretty cheap bid to do that.

Update: Frank Gruber has a very interesting inside perspective to this acquisition that you should have a go through. The crux of his story for me is that if you have a good product that you think AOL might be interested in, Frank is the guy to get in touch with. He maintains a blog and is readily available on different social media forums and conferences. Quiet rare for someone from AOL which has high walls from where no one can see inside the company and off course the insiders couldnt see out.

Embedded below is a video created by Frank explaining the acquisition.