Article by George Norman

On 23 Jul 2009

Yahoo! recently made the headlines by updating its homepage to make it more user-oriented and by updating its iPhone-dedicated instant messaging app to include push notification. The company now makes the news by confirming something that not most of us were expecting: the acquisition of social email startup Xoopit for a reportedly $20 million. Xoopit, for those of you that are not familiar with the company, makes a plugin for Google’s Gmail that lets the user browse and view photos and video links directly in the inbox window.

“Xoopit is joining Yahoo! to make the world's best email even better. Yahoo! will be integrating both our photo sharing applications and our content indexing and discovery technology into Yahoo! Mail and other services over the coming months. Xoopit has emerged as a leader in mail applications, indexing and content discovery. Yahoo! has recognized that Xoopit's technology elevates photos to the forefront of people's everyday email experiences. Mail is the original online photo sharing experience, and combining these two products results in an evolved inbox experience. Yahoo! Mail users can expect to see their mail become even more efficient, social and fun,” explained Xoopit.


Since Yahoo! Mail provides unlimited storage capability, you can receive an endless amount of emails and never delete them. When you receive emails with images in them, you especially do not want to delete the email – especially if those images are pictures of your friends and family. What you end up with is an inbox that doubles as a storage point for all the photos you don’t feel like storing locally. As a matter of fact, millions of people use Yahoo! Mail as their primary means of sharing photos online, making the email client one of the largest photo repositories in the world – at least according to SVP of Yahoo! Applications, Bryan Lamkin.

“Enter Xoopit, which Yahoo! signed an agreement to acquire today,” comments Lamkin. “With the integration of Xoopit’s platform technology and capabilities, the task of sending photos via email will be as easy as it should be and sharing photo albums with friends and family members will also be a cinch. You’ll be able to share your pictures among a group of friends or family like never before – combining pictures from numerous sources into a single album for a private group to view. And soon your inbox will become an organized photo index as well. Just imagine having a tool that collects all the photos you’ve sent and received over the years into that scrapbook you’ve never had time to assemble.”

In brief, here is what Xoopit will bring to Yahoo! Mail:
- Excellent photo organization.
- Enhanced photo sharing.
- The chance to discover photos in Yahoo! Mail that you forgot are in there.

You might remember what I mentioned above – that not many of us were expecting this move on Yahoo!’s part. While it is true that Yahoo! has proposed to purchase Xoopit several times in the past, after the Q2 2009 figures came in, we were expecting Yahoo! to keep a tight lid on its money. This is because the Q2 report indicated a 13% drop in revenue year after year. On the other side, an acquisition that will make Yahoo! Mail a better service, might just turn the tide in Yahoo!’s favor.



Tags: Yahoo!, Yahoo! Mail, Xoopot, Google, Gmail, Q2, Revenue

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