Reports are suggesting that Yahoo is to announce on Thursday that it has purchased Xoopit for a price in the region of $20 million. Yahoo have allegedly been impressed by the plug-in that already works on Google’s Gmail accounts and the deal is said to be done and dusted.
Xoopit was launched in 2006 as a way of browsing all your email, photos and videos in one spot. Any links sent to you from sites such as YouTube are automatically collected which saves you having to visit each of the sites in order to view the content.
Yahoo mail is one of the most popular products for Yahoo (and on the web) and opening up to third-party applications such as YouTube and integrating this social aspect will be a huge step in not only retaining its popularity but also taking it to the next level. This move could also see Yahoo Mail become the flagship tool for keeping all your online social activity in one place which will almost certainly escalate Yahoo’s profile which many have perceived as dwindling in recent times against other players such Twitter and Google (to name a few).
Time will only tell how well this acquisition will do for Yahoo however without question this definitely appears to be a very shrewd move from Yahoo.