Brett_Tabke - 2:16 pm on May 22, 2010 (gmt 0)

[techcrunch.com...]

Google has acquired online travel guide and community Ruba. Ruba is a visual travel guide and tour review site that provides travelers with visual guides written by other travelers. The blog post is embedded below. Google has confirmed the acquisition. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Ruba offer users a way to visually browse through cities and their attractions around the world, offering photo-rich guides and an emphasis on making it easy to quickly discover new locations. The site is headed by Mike Cassidy, who has founded a number of successful companies, including Xfire, which sold to Viacom in 2006 for $102 million. Guides are all written and submitted by users, with Ruba pulling from Google and Flickr APIs to help pinpoint locations and provide some sample photos (users can submit their own, too). The site, which is similar in some ways to TripAdvisor, features integration with Twitter and Facebook Connect, allowing users to broadcast where they’re headed and ask friends for input.