Yahoo Buys Ptch

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Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) purchased another startup after announcing its acquisition of SkyPhrase, a natural language processing technology (NLP) company yesterday. This time the tech giant acquired Ptch, a mobile video creation app to improve its photo and video platform technology.

Transition will begin on January 2nd

In a blog post, Ptch announced that its team will join Yahoo! Inc. (NADAQ:YHOO), and its operations will shut down starting January 2. The startup wrote, “Today, we’re excited to announce that Ptch will be joining Yahoo! As part of the Yahoo team, we’ll be able to focus our efforts and leverage our technology to make Yahoo’s photo and video platforms the best in the world.”

Ed Leonard, chief technology officer at DreamWorks, was the brainchild of Ptch. He initially used an old storage room at the DreamWorks campus as his office.  Leonard and Hans Ku co-founded Ptch and launched the company over a year ago. Leonard left DreamWorks to serve as CEO of Ptch, but his recent profile on Linkedln Corporation (NYSE:LNKD) indicated that he is currently working as a senior executive at DreamWorks Animation and president at DWA Investments Inc.

Yahoo’s new acquisition is ‘platform for living media’

Ptch allows users to click users to clip photos or videos and create montage videos of shareable movies. Last July, Leonard told CNET that he envisioned the company as a “platform for living media.” The company aimed to become a social network for video creators.

The mobile video creation startup advised its users to download and save their ptches from ptch.com or ptch app to their camera or phone. The Ptch team expressed gratitude to its users and promised to bring more exciting product through the platform of Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) in the future.

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Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) did not provide details regarding the transaction, and its plans on how to use Ptch’s technology. Observers in the technology industry speculated that the tech giant might integrate Ptch with its Flickr mobile app to strengthen its competitiveness.  The company previously acquired other video app companies including Qwiki and Jumpcut.

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