Professional social network Viadeo acquires Soocial for smarter contact management

News leaked out via French media today ahead of a planned announcement tomorrow, that professional social network Viadeo has acquired contact management startup Soocial.

The Next Web spoke to Olivier Fecherolle, Chief Strategy and Development Officer at Viadeo, about the acquisition of the Amsterdam-based service which makes synchronising contacts between devices a simple, painless experience.

Fecherolle says that the addition of better contact management is “a natural improvement” for Viadeo. Soocial’s existing service will continue to be available as a stand-alone product, but from the beginning of next year, the technology will be integrated with Viadeo’s platform, letting you sync you contacts on the network with address books you have everywhere.

Paris-based Viadeo’s network stretches across much of the world (see this infographic from earlier in the year) and while it’s less-well known than LinkedIn, it’s strengths tend to be in different parts of the world to its American rival. In China, where it operates the Tianji network (more on the company’s Chinese strategy here), Soocial integration will take place later as this is a completely separate platform from the rest of the network.

Contact management is an important part of professional social networking. LinkedIn recently updated its CardMunch app, which transforms photographs of business cards into LinkedIn contacts via slow, but generally accurate human transcription.

The 6-person Soocial team will remain in Amsterdam, giving Viadeo an office in the Netherlands for the first time. The value of the acquisition hasn’t been disclosed.