+44 (0)20 7930 4158POPULAR TOOLS
Yahoo! to go on social network investment spree
Yahoo! intends to take advantage of depressed valuations to beef up its presence in the social network market with a number of acquisitions, according to Yahoo! CTO Ari Balogh.
Deal Details
- Status pending
“I can guarantee you there will be some acquisitions, and we will do some stuff in-house,” Balogh told the Reuters Global Technology Summit.
Yahoo! intends to release new social networking features over the coming months, including the ability to share status updates across Yahoo! pages. Balogh says the company is discussing partnerships with various firms along with “more interesting” possibilities.
“We're getting the pulse of companies you might not know about as well as interacting much more aggressively with companies you do," says Balogh.
He adds that the economic crisis is creating an attractive environment for investment and expansion.
Balogh concedes that Google has won the battle in traditional search. However, he says traditional “ten blue links” search listings do not give the user enough guidance and are accompanied by ugly advertising. The company is in the process of revamping its search offering with new features designed to create a “web of objects” rather than pages.
“I believe search is going to be far richer ... there's a whole other round or two to go in the search game and that's where we intend on playing,” say Balogh.
Yahoo! CEO Carol Bartz is pursuing a strategy of divesting the company of underperforming businesses to focus on areas Yahoo! is strong in. Though the firm is not one of the major players in social networking, its large dedicated homepage following may provide a receptive audience for new products in the sphere. Flickr is Yahoo!’s most successful social networking venture to date and the company may be planning to exploit the photo network as it strengthens its presence in the market.
