Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) made another acquisition as it seeks to strengthen its position and profitability in the mobile space. The company purchased Blink, mobile messaging app that has the ability to self-destruct conversations of chats shared by users.
Meh Labs, a company established by former employees at Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL), Kevin Stephens and Michelle Norgan created Blink messenger. They launched Blink last year on Apple App Store. The messaging app is also available on Google Play.
Stephens and Norgan launched Blink App to disrupt the mobile social networking niche with a new feature– short-lived or self-destructing messaging. The developers noted that many teenagers expressed concerns regarding privacy online.
Blink App allows users to set a time for their messages to expire (1to 10 seconds for photos and 10 seconds to 5 minutes for texts) and they also have the option to save their messages permanently.
In April last year, Stephens emphasized, “Ephemeral messaging is not always about doing something inappropriate. The main use case is anything where you want to be honest and spontaneous, and not worried ‘what if someone reads this in two years?
In a blog post, Blink Team announced that they are joining Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO), but did not provide any details regarding the acquisition. The team wrote, “We’re excited to announce that as of May 13, 2014, Blink is joining Yahoo! We built Blink because we believe everyone should be free to show the same honesty and spontaneity in their online conversations as they can in person. We look forward to the possibilities that will come from bringing the Blink vision to Yahoo.”
Under the leadership of CEO Marissa Mayer, Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) acquired more than 20 start-ups including Tumblr in an effort to turnaround the company. With all the acquisitions, the company still hasn’t delivered significant revenue growth.
Observer in the technology industry opined that Mayer could face a critical decision in connection with the upcoming IPO of Alibaba Group as Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) plans to sell some of its stake in the Chinese e-commerce giant, which will give her the firepower to buy companies. Mayer previously stated, “We know this is of critical importance to our investors—how any proceeds are handled. We intend to be good stewards of the capital. We have been good stewards of the capital to date. ”
