Yahoo hones mobile vision further with Summly buy
Turns out online news readers are all the rage these days -- whether they're on the way out or someone else is coming up with an alternative.
Yahoo has been busy rebuilding its own digital news and media platform, from the email app to a new home page and infinite newstream.
Now the Cupertino, Calif.-based company is working harder on the mobile aspect as it purchases mobile news reader Summly.
Adam Cahan, senior vice president of mobile and emerging products at Yahoo, noted in a blog post on Monday that the standalone Summly app will be shuttered, but that the team behind it will be joining Yahoo.
Cahan also hinted at the rationale behind Yahoo's decision to buy Summly:
Summly solves this by delivering snapshots of stories, giving you a simple and elegant way to find the news you want, faster than ever before. For publishers, the Summly technology provides a new approach to drive interest in stories and reach a generation of mobile users that want information on the go.
Financial terms of the deal have not been disclosed, but the merger is expected to close during the second quarter of this year.
UPDATE: AllThingsD is reporting that Yahoo paid approximately $30 million for Summly, breaking down to 90 percent in cash with the remaining 10 percent in stock.
However, it could be difficult to argue that Yahoo is filling a void left by Google Reader. Summly's elegant user interface for reading news online looks more on par with the likes of Google Currents or even Pocket or Flipboard.
But considering it was also named one of the best apps in Apple's App Store in 2012, that design as well as popularity could push Yahoo News to the forefront of plenty of smartphones and tablets.
The addition of Summly also quickly follows Yahoo's acquisition of social recommendation engine Jybe last week.
CEO Marissa Mayer has spoken frequently in the last few months about her vision for Yahoo to be focused around personalized web experiences.
Since she took the helm of the beleaguered search company last summer, Yahoo has been stockpiling mobile and social media startups while also consolidating and eliminating other products that don't align with the new strategy.
Image via Summly