Yahoo += Snip.it

Yahoo and Snip.it have jointly announced acquisition of Snip.it.  The deal is announced to be around $10M plus earnout bonus for the team members according to TechCrunch.  Snip.it was a 10-person startup that launched in 2011, and they reportedly have been in the talks with Yahoo for several weeks.

Here's a short clip of what Snip.it did (I'm using the past tense because Yahoo decided to shut down its service):



Based on Marissa Mayer's vision, people are speculating that Snip.it team may be working on integrating their latest features into Yahoo Social News products.

Unfortunately I never got to use Snip.it.  I am hearing good things about it from the web.  Yet it seemed like they were not able to get the traction on their own fast enough.  (This traction problem is a hard problem to solve for any startup.)

From this acquisition, Yahoo is getting serious about investing on social products and making it appealing to today's users.  It seems to validate the earlier vision laid out by Mayer.

It looks like she's doing all the right things.  I look forward to seeing compelling social products from Yahoo soon.

Who's taking bigger risk, Yahoo or Marissa Mayer?

In a gutsy move, Yahoo! today appointed Marissa Mayer from Google as its next CEO.  Choosing a product-centric person with engineering background to lead Yahoo! was a big surprise.  It is a bigger surprise that Marissa took the job after 13 years of tenure at Google.

It was just about 4 months ago when Yahoo! filed a lawsuit against Facebook in its desperate attempt to generate cash from its stock pile of patents.  Now with Marissa Mayer at the helm, the image of Yahoo! cannot be any more different than what it used to be.  Mayer, a well respected engineer-turned product person, will bring a new energy to ailing Yahoo!

I hope that Mayer will be successful in her new role.  I am quite a bit biased in that regard.  Because she has engineering background and has been playing product management role with her own perspective on aesthetics, I feel like I can relate to her approach.  Definitely compared to past Yahoo! CEOs, I think she is the CEO that I want to see to succeed the most.

Yahoo!: a sad day for all innovators

Today Yahoo! filed a suit against Facebook for patent infringement.  As you might know Yahoo! has a new CEO, Scott Thompson, and along with a rumor of impending big layoffs there has been increasing talks within Yahoo! about suing Facebook.  In a patent infringement suit that was filed in San Francisco, Yahoo! alleges that Facebook stole privacy, advertising, customization, messaging, and social networking technology to create its social networking site.

Yahoo! sues Facebook;
a sad day for everyone in Silicon Valley

This looks like Yahoo! is committing itself back in to the race.  The problem is that it's the race to the bottom.  Just when you thought Yahoo! might be getting ready to bounce back from series of failures, this is yet another downer for Yahoo!.

People in software industry acknowledge that current software patent system is broken.  Core idea of patent is not to stifle the innovation.  It is to encourage sharing of ideas and building on someone else's idea.  However, software patents are used to stifle innovation by allowing patent trolls to trade idea-only patents and to go after companies that are actually innovating.

It's really sad to see Yahoo! choosing the path to become a patent troll.  It's especially sadder to see it happen with new CEO who is supposed to turn Yahoo! around for the better.