Facebook's purchase of FriendFeed is a smart, defensive move that keeps the up-and-coming company out of competitors' clutches, a U.S. technology analyst said.

Forrester Research analyst Jeremiah Owyang said the purchase reported in The Wall Street Journal Tuesday was "a good move for Facebook."

In part, the purchase keeps FriendFeed out of the hands of Twitter, MySpace and other competitors, TechNewsWorld reported.

The Journal said the purchase price was about $50 million. FriendFeed's Web site has about 1 million unique visitors a month -- a drop in the bucket compared with Facebook's 250 million. But FriendFeed is popular among "uber social geeks," Owyang said.

Facebook spokesman Larry Yu said the company was working on ways to integrate the two services.

But Owyang said FriendFeed, founded by former Google developers, may have jumped the gun.

"They could have given it a couple more years. With some marketing, they could have developed into a viable social media competitor," he said.