Recently, Marissa Mayer passed the one year mark as acting CEO of Yahoo and in that time the company made a somewhat staggering number of purchases. Specifically, we’re talking about startups here, of which 16 were snatched up by the intrepid CEO. A number of industry analysts and commentators have noted that this is a fairly swift pace for purchases and that there simply aren’t a lot of other companies that you might be able to compare them with in this regard.
Understandably, most of the businesses were start-ups, but nevertheless, it’s an interesting trend and certainly set off some alarms within the tech world. In case you aren’t already aware, Mayer was with Google not too long ago, a company which is known for employing very similar tactics in order to bring emerging talent within its grasp. At any rate, you’ve got to hand it to her, Yahoo has been struggling as of late and it would seem that her efforts have made an overall positive impact with regards to the company’s bottom line.
Specifically, most of the startups she purchased are directly tied to mobile technologies, which hints at what Yahoo’s long-term strategies are. Here is a complete list of the start-ups acquired:
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Stamped – App that lets users share their favorite things, books, restaurants, movies, etc…
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OnTheAir – chat broadcasting app, the team now works for Yahoo
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Snip.it – social media site which focused on opinion pieces and sharing
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Alike – An App that lets users locate businesses and locales which might be beneficial or perk their specific interests
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Jybe – Another app that focuses on providing users with personalized suggestions
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Summly – News aggregator
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Astrid – App that lets users create simple lists for personal use
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GoPollGo – a service that allowed businesses to conduct polls and research, often in real-time
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MileWise – An app specifically aimed at airline travel, calculating costs based on free miles, rewards, etc…
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Loki Studios – Unique game development studio
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Tumblr – (This site should need no introduction or description) Yahoo’s purchase with the biggest price tag @ $1.1 billion!
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PlayerScale – an infrastructure / platform / service which focuses on delivering social media content, specifically games
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GhostBird – photograph editing-related app
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Rondee – was a free conferencing service
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Bignoggins – a fantasy sports app
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Qwiki – iPhone app that allows users to create movies from the content on their device
Aside from focusing on growth, it would seem that Mayer and Yahoo are also interested in going out of their way to bring new people into their organization. As many have already stated, this is perhaps part of an attempt to both reinvigorate operations and remain competitive against companies like Google. At any rate, her efforts seem to be working and Yahoo is apparently back on track to becoming a viable entity once again. Currently, we’re seeing users starting to become more excited by the changes in addition to employees and perhaps most importantly, shareholders.