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
If the FANG (Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, Google) sector and their measured worth are the final argument for the successful 21st Century model, then they are beyond reproach. Fine-tuning masses of algorithms to reduce human touchpoints and deliver wild returns to investors—all with workforces infinitesimally small compared to the giants of the 20th Century—has been proven out.
Marketers have made strides this year in sustainability with the number of brands rallying behind the Not Business As Usual alliance for action against climate change being a sign of the times. While sustainability efforts have gained momentum this year, 2020 is shaping up to be the year brands are really held accountable for their work in this area.
As a Marketer, the ‘Scotty from Marketing’ meme troubles me.
In this bonus last episode of this new podcast series, BrandHook MD, Pip Stocks, talks with former ANZ group general manager of marketing, Louise Eyres, talks about the importance of thinking like a customer and using intuition to solve customer painpoints.
If you think it can benefit both consumer and seller then it would be great
Simon Bird
Why Ford is counting on the Internet of Things to drive customer engagement
It's a good idea. Customers really should control their data. Now I understand why it's important.
Elvin Huntsberry
Salesforce CMO: Modern marketers have an obligation to give customers control of their data
Instagram changes algorithms every time you get used to them. It really pisses me off. What else pisses me off? The fact that Instagram d...
Nickwood
Instagram loses the like in Australia; industry reacts positively
I tried www.analisa.io to see my Instagram Insight
Dina Rahmawati
7 marketing technology predictions for 2016
The saying is pretty tongue in cheek. It's not saying that marketers are bad people, nor that they don't take themselves seriously. There...
LYF Solutions
The trouble with Scotty from Marketing - The CMO view - CMO Australia