In its latest acquisition of a social networking service, Internet powerhouse Yahoo Inc devoured del.icio.us Inc., a startup that enables people to more easily compile and share their favorite content on the Web.
Joshua Schachter, the founder of Del.icio.us, confirmed a posting on the New York-based start-up’s site that the company had been acquired by Yahoo. A Yahoo representative confirmed that the agreement to buy Del.icio.us had been closed.
Financial terms were not disclosed, he said.
We are joining forces to build my vision of creating a way for people to remember things together, Schachter told Reuters in a phone interview. It is a shared-memory site.
The acquisition of Del.icio.us marks the second major acquisition by Yahoo of a leading "social networking" site, following the Sunnyvale, California-based company’s purchase of popular photo sharing site Flickr earlier this year.
The Sunnyvale-based company did not disclose how much it paid for New York-based del.icio.us because the purchase price was not large enough to have a significant impact on its finances.
Del.icio.us provides a simple way for hundreds of thousands of Web users to share and categorize their favorite Web page bookmarks as Web pages.
It is considered one of the leading examples of the "Web 2.0" phenomenon, which refers to a new generation of collaborative sites that have grown up on the Web in recent years that depend on user-contributed information.
Del.icio.us has only nine employees. Venture backers include Union Square Capital, Amazon.com and BV Capital, among others. Some 300,000 users have shared more than 10 million of their favorite links to Web sites, Schachter said.
Schachter was co-developer of Memepool, a kind of daily diary of links to interesting Web sites that has been running since 1998.
He graduated from Carnegie Mellon with an electrical engineering degree in 1996, according to his personal site. Schachter plans to move to Sunnyvale to join Yahoo’s search products group, the same division where Flickr is based.
Del.icio.us will continue to run its own Web site, 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.
Meanwhile Yahoo has joined forces with Seven Network Ltd of Australia, the companies announced. Seven Network and Yahoo will be equal partners in a holding company called Yahoo! Australia and New Zealand, according to a written release.
We are building on our strengths to create a broad media company focused on the delivery of relevant content to all Australians across a number of delivery platforms, Seven chairman Kerry Stokes said in the release.
Yahoo, based in Silicon Valley, will bring Internet search portal power to the partnership while seven contributes magazine and television content along with online capabilities, according to the companies.
As part of the deal, Seven Network will contribute US$7.52 million in investment capital, promote the enterprise, and give Yahoo a 33 percent stake in mobile solutions provider m.Net Corporation Ltd, the release said.
The firms will combine their online teams and expect to launch "an exciting online presence" late next month to coincide with Seven’s coverage of the Australian Open and the winter Olympic Games in Italy.
Yahoo and Seven have very complementary businesses and brands, and we see this as a tremendous opportunity to build a leadership position in Australia, Yahoo chairman Terry Semel said in a release.
Together, I believe we can deliver the most engaging and innovative rich media experience for Australian audiences and advertisers, Semel said.