In another move to strengthen their mobile presence, Yahoo! purchased an iPhone application known as Qwiki late last week. The application makes it quick and easy for users to take the pictures, music and videos they have on their device and turn them into a high quality slide show video which they can then share with friends, family or anyone else. While not a direct competitor to Vine or Instagram, it is a similar service which might be what attracted Yahoo! in the first place.
While the official purchase price has not yet been released, AllThingsD believes the purchase price is between $40 and $50 million in a cash deal. In the official Yahoo! announcement it was said that the Qwiki app as well as the employees of the company that developed it would work closely with Yahoo! to help them reimagine storytelling.
This purchase marks the 15th acquisition for Yahoo! since Marissa Mayer took over as CEO in July of 2012. The company continues to strengthen its core services of search and email while expanding into additional services such as video with this purchase and blogging with the recent purchase of Tumblr. Investors and marketers in general will want to continue to watch Yahoo! as it is making many changes, purchases and other improvements both today and going forward.
Those in the content marketing industry will want to watch Qwiki specifically as it could provide an excellent way to reach targeted audiences with high quality content. Now backed by Yahoo! it will likely continue to grow both in popularity and in the features it offers.
The full announcement of this purchase can be seen HERE.
