Yahoo acquires Alike, but CEO Mayer looks to reduce number of Yahoo's mobile apps

February 12, 2013 | By Mike Dano

Yahoo acquired Alike, a mobile app that helped users discover nearby venues and places to visit. As a result, Alike said it will shutter its iPhone and Web apps, but the company's employees will join Yahoo's mobile business.

"We've found a team as excited about this vision as we are, and who are serious about making it real," Alike noted on its website. "We're super excited to join Yahoo's mobile team, where we can march toward that vision faster than ever."

Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Alike is one of a number of minor acquisitions Yahoo has made in recent months. The company acquired Snip.it in January, video platform OnTheAir in December and Stamped in October.

The announcement of Yahoo's acquisition of Alike came just hours before Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer appeared at Goldman Sachs' Technology and Internet conference, where she offered further insight into Yahoo's mobile strategy.

According to the several reports from the event, Mayer acknowledged that Yahoo has a very scattered portfolio in mobile. She said the company counts 200 million mobile monthly active users spread across 60-75 different applications. She said the company plans to refocus on a dozen or so apps that people use frequently, rather than a large number of apps that might not get much use. For example, Mayer said Yahoo will more closely focus on its Groups service in mobile.

Mayer said ideally Yahoo users would make use of 2-4 apps from the company, though she didn't provide details.

Mayer said Yahoo is looking to mobile to rekindle growth in its user base.

"I think the opportunity for growth (in mobile) is very fundamentally one of the things that drew me to Yahoo," she said, according to the Wall Street Journal. "When you think about mobile... When you see triple-digit growth in some areas, there's a big opportunity for growth. Yahoo has the content that people want on their phone."

Mayer also hinted that Yahoo could make additional changes to its Yahoo Mail service on mobile, which the company overhauled in December. "To me, Mail isn't done," she said, according to the WSJ. "The challenge, as email goes to mobile, is how should mobile email work. We're trying to figure out how mail can be done well on the phone."

For more:
- see this AllThingsD article
- see this Alike page
- see this Wall Street Journal live blog (sub. req.)
- see this Forbes article