Tag: acquisitions

Google Buys Emu Messaging Service to Boost its Messaging Might

Google has bought an intelligent, personal assistant based messaging app called EMU. The app is created by an ex-Google and an ex-Apple employee who worked on Siri. The basic premise of the app is close to what Google Now offers. It goes through your conversations and picks up leads to provide the users with recommendations related to their interest.

Emu began as an Android app, and its superior assistance feature must have prompted Google to loosen its purse strings. The app is capable of scheduling appointments to the calendar, set reminders and setting restaurant reservations with convenience like never before.

This is how the website looked soon after the acquisition announcement.

Messaging is where a lot of big companies have been investing. With Facebook buying Whatsapp, it was evident that messaging apps have grown in prominence and have overtaken the good old SMS. Now there is a race to perfect a messaging app. Apple, at WWDC this year has already presented a unique messaging feature which intertwines all its ecosystem’s messaging features. Apple’s messaging features were appreciated even though they seemed “inspired” by the features of various apps like Whatsapp, Snapchat, etc.

It is said that Google’s acquired Emu to strengthen its Hangout app, thereby giving an alternative to what Apple has to offer. Emu founders have announced that the app will cease to exist as an independent app and will be shut down by August 25. It will be interesting to see if Google plays the messaging game. Will it repeat its email success with Gmail or we’ll end up with another Google Plus fiasco?

Emu is impressive the way it was introduced and Google might have learnt its lessons by now and may be ready to go head-to-head with Apple.

Check out what the app can do in this video. Caution: They have a catchy background score that will be stuck in your head all day long.

August 7, 2014
Rakuten Acquires Viber for $900 million

Rakuten(a Japanese electronic commerce and Internet company based in Tokyo) has just got into the mobile communications business by purchasing the internet calling application, Viber for $900 million.

Viber is one of the most used application for smartphones, with 300 million users worldwide Viber seems the only competition for Skype. Rakuten has plans to get its approach outside Japan and share its business ideas worldwide. However, Viber is not the first company for Rakuten when it is about acquisition. Rakuten in 2012 acquired Kobo (eReading service), that now offers 4 million eBooks, magazines and newspapers in 190 countries. In 2012, Rakuten acquired Wuaki.tv,(video-on-demand and streaming service) and even more.

Rakuten Chairman and CEO, Hiroshi Mikitani, commented:

I am tremendously excited to welcome Viber to the Rakuten family. Viber delivers the most consistently high quality and convenient messaging and VoIP experience available. Additionally, Viber has introduced a great sticker market and has tremendous potential as a gaming platform. Simply put, Viber understands how people actually want to engage and have built the only service that truly delivers on all fronts. This makes Viber the ideal total consumer engagement platform for Rakuten as we seek to bring our deep understanding of the consumer to vast new audiences through our dynamic ecosystem of Internet Services.”

Viber CEO and Founder, Talmon Marco, underlined these synergies:

Rakuten is one of the world’s most important Internet companies. It is truly dominant in its home market of Japan and has been rapidly expanding globally. This combination presents an amazing opportunity for Viber to enhance our rapid user growth in both existing and new markets. Sharing similar aspirations with Rakuten, our vision is to be the world’s No.1 communications platform and our combination with Rakuten is an important step in that direction.”

February 14, 2014
Yahoo Acquires ‘Bre.ad’ a URL Shortener

Yahoo has acquired Bre.ad, a URL shortener, the service has shut down on Friday after the success of the acquisition.

Bre.ad posted the news on its website, all services related to Bre.ad Social have shut down but all shortened Bread URLs will remain active till November 11. CEO Alan Chan said:

In Yahoo, we found a company that shares our vision. We are thrilled to join Yahoo’s advertising team in Sunnyvale where we will be working on developing next-generation solutions for social and mobile publishers and advertisers. For the next 30 days, until November 11, we will support Bread links that our publishers created in the past. We highly recommend our publishers swap out their Bread links with new links from bit.ly.

Yahoo confirms that six engineers and product managers will join its advertising technology team, saying:

We have acquired Bread, a company that created a simple way for social media influencers and publishers to monetize their content. The team’s focus on delivering creative and targeted advertising across social media, desktop and mobile devices aligns perfectly with our mission to delight and inspire users.”

October 12, 2013