Sunnyvale, California — Yahoo has agreed to acquire Associated Content, an Internet portal that commissions and publishes articles and other content from its vast stable of 380,000 freelance contributors to write commentary and informational articles on a broad range of subjects, in a major push by the Internet portal to offer more original content.
Yahoo!, which has enlisted a large crowd of freelance writers and editors in recent months, did not disclose the financial terms of the acquisition but, according to several technology blogs put the price tag at around 100 million dollars.
Denver, Colorado-based Associated Content hosts around 380,000 freelance writers from around the United States writing on a variety of subjects.
Its website, AssociatedContent.com, received 16 million unique visitors last month according to online tracking firm comScore.
The move is part of Yahoo chief executive Carol Bartz’s plan of action that refocuses on content after relinquishing its search operations to Microsoft, and represents a bid to compete with similar offerings from AOL and Demand Media.
Similar to AOL’s newly introduced Seed and Demand Media, Associated Content farms out assignments to hundreds of thousands of writers and pays around $5 per post. The move also makes Yahoo more competitive with AOL, which has employed a similar plan of action under chief executive Tim Armstrong (who coincidentally is an investor in Associated Content).
Yahoo!, based in Sunnyvale, California, described purchasing Associated Content as a “strategic move” that combines the site’s army of contributors with Yahoo!’s established media brands and editorial team.
“For advertisers, this deal will expand Yahoo! into more topic areas and real-time content generation,” the Internet firm said.
“Together, we will develop more content around what we know our users care about, and open up new and creative avenues for advertisers to engage with consumers across our network,” Yahoo! chief executive Carol Bartz said in a statement.
Associated Content was founded in 2005 and has grown to attract more than 1.75 billion page-views since it was founded.
Associated Content founder and president Luke Beatty said “combining our crowd-sourced content with Yahoo!’s distribution, world class editorial team and online marketing leadership will accelerate our growth.”
Yahoo! said that while Associated Content is present “US-centric,” it “hopes to scale the platform globally.”
Associated Content’s site will remain the publishing destination for contributors, but its content will be widely distributed through Yahoo’s network.
Yahoo! said it hopes to finalize the acquisition in the third quarter of this year.