Yahoo Devours Del.icio.us

From the Associated Press, by way of Wired News:

SUNNYVALE, California — In its latest acquisition of a social networking service, internet powerhouse Yahoo on Friday chomped down on del.icio.us, a startup that enables people to more easily compile and share their favorite content on the web.

The Sunnyvale, California-based company didn’t disclose how much it paid for New York-based del.icio.us because the purchase price wasn’t large enough to have a significant impact on its finances.

Del.icio.us will continue to run its own website, which allows users to create a personal account so they can create a page devoted to their favorite online articles, music and reviews. The material can be shared with others simply by sending along the web link. The content also can be identified with labels, or “tags,” to make it simpler to find.

More than 300,000 users have signed up for the service since del.icio.us’ inception two years ago, founder Joshua Schachter said in a Friday phone interview. Schachter intends to work at Yahoo’s headquarters, but del.icio.us’ other eight employees will be scattered around the country.

During the past year, Yahoo has been adding more tools that promote sharing among friends and family as it battles for web traffic with its biggest rivals — Google, Microsofts MSN and Time Warner’s AOL. All of them are trying to widen their internet audiences so they can make more money from steadily increasing volume of online advertising.

Yahoo’s other recent social networking acquisitions include a popular photo-tagging service, Flickr, and an event-planning service, Upcoming.org.

Looks like Yahoo has taken the acquisition trail instead of product R&D, which is apparently Google’s strategy. It’s very surprising that the internet companies have likewise gone the trail of the conglomerates of the 1980’s. Would we see them likewise sell these acquired companies in the future to focus on their “core businesses?”

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