Marissa Mayer’s increasing campaign to strengthen Yahoo’s presence on mobile technology continues with the acquisition of messaging app Blink.
The app, a rival to Snapchat and Telegram, enables users to exchange messages, record audio, send doodles and photos, and make videos to send to friends. All messages are encrypted for privacy and users are identified only by a Blink ID. Users of Blink can send ‘self destruct’ messages and control the amount of time recipients have to view the content.
It has not been disclosed how much Yahoo paid for Blink. The app will be closing down on both iOS and Android platforms in the next few weeks, so that Blink’s team can concentrate on working for Yahoo’s “smart communication” products.
Since Mayer became Chief Executive Officer at Yahoo the company has focused their attention on their mobile products, acquiring several small mobile start-ups. Yahoo’s aim is to build its online services on its tablets and smartphones. The company counts 430 million monthly users of its mobile products, while the number of online video streams consumers watched increased by 30% from the fourth quarter.
Blink announced the news on their website, saying they “look forward to the possibilities that will come from bringing the Blink vision to Yahoo.”
“We built Blink because we believe everyone should be free to show the same honesty and spontaneity in their online conversations as they can in person.”
Messaging apps are becoming popular acquisitions for large internet companies. Earlier this year Facebook acquired WhatsApp for a whopping $19 billion. Yahoo is obviously keen to keep up with the trend.
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