As Frontline revealed the deep divisions in the legal community last night, including FBI Director Mueller threatening to resign over illegal NSA spying on US citizens, Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) announces it is purchasing Blink, a mobile messaging application that allows users to send messages that self-destruct at a time chosen by the sender.
Show same honesty online as in person
“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,” the company said in a Reuters report.
The acquisition comes on the heels of rival Snapchat settled charges with U.S. regulators that accused it of deceiving consumers by promising that photos sent on its service disappeared forever after a certain period. The deal for Blink, which was announced in its website, comes nearly one year after its founding in April of 2013. Blink was founded inside Meh Labs, an incubator company founded by ex-Google employees Kevin Stephens and Michelle Norgan. Meh Labs is best known for its location-sharing app Kismet. As a result of the deal, Blink will shut down its app for both iOS and Android platforms in coming weeks.
Yahoo adding small, mobile start-up apps
For its part Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) has added to its stable several small, mobile start-ups since Mayer took over and now has 430 million monthly users of its mobile products.
Mobile messaging apps are particularly hot in emerging markets. Internet-based firms have been seeking to capitalize on the popularity of free services offered through the apps as a way to grow users and monetize mobile advertising revenue. The top of the sweepstakes goes to Whatsapp. The mobile messaging service received a $3 billion buyout offer from Facebook Inc late last year, which it rejected. Facebook later acquired mobile messaging app Whatsapp for $19 billion, its largest acquisition ever. Japanese e-commerce company Rakuten Inc got a piece of the action this past February when it bought Viber, a mobile app enabling free calls and messages, for $900 million.
