Given my previous post regarding AOL’s announcement of their forthcoming “AIMspace” service (Link) and my comments over on Mashable saying that I believed AOL would still purchase or partner up with someone, I thought this bit of news over on Next Generation provided a good example of what I had in mind. From their short article (Link):

Xfire, a free online PC gaming application that facilitates in-game messaging, stat-tracking, voice chat and other community-based features, has exceeded 3 million users.

The service is supported by big-name advertisers such as Pepsi, Dodge, Fox Studios and Electronic Arts. Xfire claims its platform is the fastest-growing in the world.

When I made that comment about AOL, this is exactly the kind of company I had in mind. If you have the patience to dig through my post from yesterday (Link) you’ll notice how I use MS’s XBox Live service as part of a potentially much larger “profiling” system. I mean, just look at this part taken from the Xfire website:

Xfire automatically keeps track of your gaming stats, such as the games you play and how many hours you’ve played them, and displays them on your profile page.

Folks, this company is ripe for purchase.