14 DAY TRIAL // Yahoo’s shopping spree has slowed down considerably over the past few months after a very busy summer, but that doesn’t mean the company has stopped buying out startups altogether. Evidence for this is the latest announcement coming from the Internet giant.
SkyPhrase, Yahoo’s latest acquisition, is a startup that specializes in conversational search queries for services such as Twitter and Gmail.
Basically, they try to use natural language to prompt computers and services to do a particular action, which they believe makes for a much more powerful and user-friendly experience.
As many other purchases in the past, this one is more of an “acqui-hire,” meaning that the main reason the company got bought off is the talent behind its products. That being said, the team will be joining Yahoo Labs, the company’s research and development division in New York.
The deal was announced via the Yahoo Labs blog, while a statement published on SkyPhrase’s website confirms everything.
“In Yahoo, we have found a company that not only shares our vision, but delivers a rich collection of information and services to a massive user base. We are excited to join Yahoo Labs to continue to work on our shared vision of making computers deeply understand people's natural language and intentions. We can’t wait to take things to the next level together,” the SkyPhrase team wrote on the company’s site.
Yahoo has so far bought over 20 companies this year alone, which is a huge increase considering that it only made two acquisitions in 2012, three in 2011 and four the year before. Ever since Marissa Mayer came along in 2012, Yahoo has changed completely as she tries to get the company back on track, bringing in new talent, technology and freshening up every aspect of Yahoo’s sites, including in terms of design and functionality.
The biggest fail so far has been, many believe, the changes made to Yahoo Mail, which a lot of people have stopped using in the past couple of months.