Jason Abbruzzese says, “Yahoo has acquired advertising platform Brightroll for $640 million, a move that quickly makes the web giant a player in the lucrative and growing market of online video. The acquisition, which was announced on Tuesday, is an all-cash deal that will bolster Yahoo’s existing advertising offering, which has struggled to transition away from older display ads. The $640 million price tag makes Brightroll one of Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer’s most expensive acquisitions behind Tumblr, which the company bought for $1 billion last year. Unlike Tumblr, Brightroll is already... [...]

Selena Larson says, “Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer has spent close to two and a half years at the helm without articulating any particularly clear strategy for revitalizing the hodgepodge of a Web company. Now, pressured by activist shareholders who want her to cut costs and send its Alibaba-IPO windfall back to investors, Mayer has basically announced that she plans to … do more of what she’s been doing. During the company’s quarterly earnings call on Tuesday, Mayer defended her strategy of acquiring startups—the majority of whose apps and servicesalmost immediately vanished without... [...]

Greg Sterling says, “Yahoo just reported Q3 revenues. The company said that it earned $1.094 billion in revenue, which was up a modest 1 percent compared to a year ago. This beat Wall Street expectations; analysts had anticipated an overall revenue decline. The company also reported that mobile revenues were “now material” and exceeded $200 million for the quarter. For the year Yahoo projected more than $1.2 billion in mobile ad revenue, which is both a surprise and a bright spot for the company. Search revenues overall were up while display was down. Search revenue (ex-TAC) in the... [...]

Katie Richards says, “It appears that among other big Yahoo news, the company may also be looking to get back into brand advertising. Ad Age reports Yahoo has reached out to a number of agencies and reportedly asked a handful of them to prepare campaign pitches for the end of the month. It seems Yahoo may be revving up to create a new brand ad. This could mean print, digital, and even TV campaigns. Yahoo reached out directly to these agencies according to Ad Age”. Yahoo Is Thinking About A Big Marketing Push, Including New TV Ads Business Insider  [...]

Greg Sterling says, “The Alibaba IPO is nigh. Next week the Chinese e-commerce company will start trading on the New York Stock Exchange and Yahoo will be one of the big beneficiaries. The expected range of Alibaba’s share price is $60 to $66 but it could easily go higher depending on demand. And demand is expected to be very strong (to hysterical) for what will certainly be not only the biggest tech IPO but potentially the largest IPO in US history. The “out of the gate” market cap for Alibaba is likely to be north of $150 billion. Yahoo currently holds 22.5 percent of the company... [...]

Martin Beck says, “Yahoo announced today that it has launched a new version of its e-commerce platform, Yahoo Stores, to give small business owners “a more powerful, streamlined and beautiful way to turn their ideas into a business.” With Yahoo Stores, an online business can be up and running in minutes, according to a blog post by Amit Kumar, head of Yahoo’s small business department: For most retailers, an online store is crucial, but getting it started is an arduous task that can take weeks. With Yahoo Stores, you can have an online store up-and-running and accepting orders in... [...]

Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai says, “Following Edward Snowden‘s revelations of widespread Internet surveillance, many technologists have been advocating for widespread encryption to counter the NSA, other spy agencies and hackers. “Encrypt all the things” has been their cry. Google listened, and now Yahoo is the second major email provider to join the movement. Alex Stamos, the company’s chief information security officer, announced Thursday that Yahoo users will have the option to send end-to-end encrypted emails next year, enabled via a browser plugin”. Yahoo... [...]

Julie Ask says, “Today Yahoo! announced its acquisition of mobile analytics and ad platform, Flurry.TechCrunch and Kara Swisher on re/code both reported the deal, with a $300M minimum price and $1 billion on the upper end. According to the press release, Flurry sees app activity from 1.4 billion devices monthly and 5.5 billion app sessions per day. A little math: 1.4 billion devices does not equal one billion active users. However, a user could have one or many apps on his phone with the Flurry software embedded. Apps do not tend to have exclusive arrangements with one mobile analytics... [...]

Seth Fiegerman says, “Yahoo has agreed to buy Flurry, a mobile app analytics service, the two companies announced late Monday. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but an earlier report in Re/code said the price tag would likely be in the “hundreds of millions” of dollars. If true, that would make this one of Yahoo’s biggest acquisitions under CEO Marissa Mayer. Flurry was founded in 2005 and works with developers and marketers to “optimize the mobile experience through better apps and more personalized ads.” It has received more than $60 million in funding to... [...]

Jason Del Rey says, “As Kara Swisher reported yesterday, AOL CEO Tim Armstrong would love to merge with Yahoo, but Marissa Mayer does not “get” the deal. Today, at the Fortune Brainstorm Tech conference, Yahoo M&A chief Jackie Reses acknowledged as much, shooting down the possibility of a deal between the two legacy Internet media companies. Asked in a panel discussion whether AOL would be purchased in the next two years, Reses responded, “Not by us.”“. Yahoo Won’t Buy AOL, Yahoo M&A Chief Says Re/code  [...]