Yahoo plans to keep the app alive and may use the technology with other services
In yet another mobile acquisition, Yahoo has acquired Qwiki, a New York City company that makes an app for turning photos and videos into short, edited movies.
The Qwiki app takes pictures and videos that people already have on their iPhones and splices them together to create a short movie, complete with scene transitions and music.
Terms of the deal, announced Tuesday, were not disclosed. Yahoo said it will continue to support the Qwiki app, and the Qwiki team will move into Yahoo's New York City office to "reimagine Yahoo's storytelling experience," Yahoo said.
The Qwiki app will continue to exist as a standalone entity inside Yahoo, Qwiki's team wrote.
The app can either be used in auto mode, where it creates the movie and gives users the option to apply edits afterwards, or movies can be created manually.
In auto mode, the app scrapes the iPhone's camera roll, determines that certain photos or videos are related, and creates a slideshow-like montage of those images, incorporating music from the person's library. Certain elements, such as the song selection, filters or captions, can be changed afterwards. Individual pictures and video clips can also be rearranged, added or removed.
Qwiki differs from mobile video apps like Twitter's Vine or Facebook's Instagram video because it uses content already on people's phones. Vine and Instagram are for recording and sharing new clips.
Qwiki movies can be shared via Facebook, Twitter, email and SMS, or embedded in blogs and Web pages. The app is currently available only in Apple's App Store; there is no version for Android devices.
Yahoo plans to integrate Qwiki's technology with other content services on its site, a spokeswoman said via email. Details are blurry, but Yahoo implied on Twitter that users may be able to use Qwiki with its Flickr photo sharing service, for instance.
"Stay tuned ... there's much more to come," Yahoo said in its blog post.
Yahoo is already trying to woo users through photography. In May it gave Flickr a huge makeover, emphasizing a more photo-rich interface and a terabyte of free storage.
Acquisitions, particularly in mobile, have been a major theme at Yahoo over the past several months. Other recent purchases include Astrid, a to-do app; Summly, a news summarization service; GoPollGo, a social polling tool; and Jybe, a discovery and recommendation startup.
Another major acquisition for Yahoo was Tumblr, announced in May as part of the company's larger efforts to reinvent itself and win back users.
Zach Miners covers social networking, search and general technology news for IDG News Service. Follow Zach on Twitter at @zachminers. Zach's e-mail address is zach_miners@idg.com
Leadership resilience, startups scaling up, marketing best practices, customer insights - these are just a few of the topics we manage to explore in the latest episode of Conversations over a Cuppa with CMO featuring Craig Davis.
There’s no denying there’s been a whirlwind of response to the imminent demise of the third-party cookie from all parts of the industry. But as we’ve collectively come to better understand the implications, it’s clear this change is giving the digital advertising industry the opportunity to re-think digital marketing to support core industry use cases, while balancing consumer privacy.
The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed brands’ CX shortcomings and a lack of customer understanding. Given ongoing disruption, customer needs, wants and expectations are continually changing, also causing customers to behave in different ways. Just look at hoarding toilet paper, staple and canned food, medicinal and cleaning products.
Understanding the core principles of Behavioural Economics will give players in the travel industry a major competitive advantage when restrictions lift and travellers begin to book again. And there are a few insights in here for the rest of the marketing community, too.
JP54,D2, D6, JetA1 EN590Dear Buyer/ Buyer mandateWe currently have Available FOB Rotterdam/Houston for JP54,D2, D6, JetA1 with good and w...
BARYBKIN ALEXANDER ALEXANDROVI
3-pronged marketing approach for property disruptor Brickx
Was really informative. Customer retention is very important for companies as retaining customers are simpler compared to making new ones...
Bhooshan Shetty
What lies ahead for the future of marketing post-AI
Good day sir / madamWe CLOSED JOINT-STOCK COMPANY AO KAYUM NEFT OIL COMPANY is one of theleading Oil & Gas trading companies in Russi...
BARYBKIN ALEXANDER ALEXANDROVI
3-pronged marketing approach for property disruptor Brickx
Good day sir / madamWe CLOSED JOINT-STOCK COMPANY AO KAYUM NEFT OIL COMPANY is one of theleading Oil & Gas trading companies in Russi...
BARYBKIN ALEXANDER ALEXANDROVI
Oath to fully acquire Yahoo7 from Seven West Media
Thank you for sharing your knowledge. Definitely bookmarked for future reading! Check this website https://a2designlab.com/ with lots of ...
Ryota Miyagi
Brene Brown: What it takes to be a brave leader right now