Yahoo Acquires Yet Another Startup
Yahoo! Inc. (YHOO) continues to maintain its startup acquisition spree. Vizify, a firm that converts social media data into visualizations and videos, is the latest to join the ranks. However, given the small size, Yahoo did not disclose the financial terms of the deal.
Vizify was founded by Todd Silverstein, Jeff Cutler-Stamm, and Eli Tucker in 2011 and has raised $1.46 million by making Internet biographies for its users. It allowed customers to create visualisations, infographics and videos by using their pictures, posts or tweets shared on websites like Facebook, Inc. (FB) and Twitter, Inc. (TWTR).
The premium members could get their biographies presented from vanity domains. A vanity domain name is a customized domain with popular keywords or phrases.
Henceforth, Yahoo! will discontinue all the operations of the firm and its team of five members will join its media product division. Also, Vizify will refund the cash to its paid users.
Premium members who have registered for vanity domains will get free ownerships later on. It will no longer allow new user registrations. A vanity domain name is user’s personal customized domain
Since Yahoo! is already concentrating on personalizing user experience, the latest buy will be an added advantage. Recently, Yahoo! announced that users will no longer be able to access its range of online services by using their Facebook or Google Inc. (GOOG) logins to help the company accumulate more detailed user data and personalize its services.
Yahoo! is focused on improving its search business and is putting all its efforts into retaining and adding to its user base. It is taking all necessary steps to pep up the company’s web products and drive declining revenues. The search engine has made nearly 40 acquisitions since Marissa Mayer became CEO in 2012 in order to gain new talent and technology.
Recently, the Internet portal acquired mobile-marketing company Sparq; Incredible Labs, the developer of personal-assistant app Donna and Wander, creator of social photo-diary based days app for iPhone and many other startups to beef up its mobile business.
It also signed a partnership agreement with Yelp in order to enhance its local search results and attract more users.
Currently, Yahoo! carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).
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