Mumbai: Internet advertising leader Google Inc. is acquiring smaller internet advertising firm Feedburner Inc., to bolster its capacity to distribute both media and advertising to blogs and social network site users.

Blog reports have put the price of a potential deal at about $100 million. Google, however, has not disclosed details of the deal.

Feedburner delivers updated information to other web sites using technology known as Really Simple Syndication (RSS) and has customers like the Wall Street Journal, BBC and Amazon.com Inc.

Feedburner also offers analytics to help Web publishers understand who reads their sites, as well as embedded advertising allowing web site publishers to get paid by advertisers based on the audiences they attract via RSS feeds.

More recently, retailers and travel agents have begun sending promotional offers to online customers via Feedburner.

Google, which is adding new technology to grow bigger bought Panoramio, a site founded by two Spaniards that allows digital photographers to plot the geographic location of their pictures on Google Maps or Google Earth, this week.

Google sees the technology as a way for its base of hundreds of thousands of advertisers to reach some of the most active groups of Web users - social network members who use mini-applications called widgets or the growing audience surfing the internet over mobile phones - officials said.

The deal, although small in financial terms, is the latest in a series of rapid moves to consolidate the fast-growing online advertising market.

The deal would expand Google''s existing blog advertising service, known as AdSense for feeds, which delivers targeted advertising tied to Web page content.

Two weeks ago, rival Microsoft Corp. announced its largest-ever acquisition, a $6 billion deal to buy aQuantive Inc., the largest independent online ad company. In April, Google agreed to acquire an aQuantive competitor, DoubleClick, for $3.1 billion.

Feedburner counts more than 430,000 web site publishers as users of RSS. A total of 736,000 RSS feeds, including roughly 110,000 audio or video feeds, are delivered to readers as publishers update their Web sites, the company said. The 30-employee company will remain based in Chicago.

Feedburner has raised $10 million Mobius Venture Capital, Portage Venture Partners, Sutter Hill Ventures, Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Union Square Ventures.