Yahoo buys Stamped; will kill its mobile app
Marissa Mayer has made her first acquisition at Yahoo, a recommendations app called Stamped that was developed by ex-Googlers and has even received backing from Google Ventures.
“Got to visit our new acquisition, Stamped, this morning—happy to be reunited with Robby and his team,” Mayer said in a post on Instagram.
Robby Stein was a product manager for Google’s Ad Exchange before he co-founded Stamped a year-and-a-half ago. Stamped has at least four other ex-Googlers on its team as well.
Stamped’s iPhone app
The company built an iPhone app that lets people keep track of things they like, such as restaurants, books and movies, and recommend them to their friends.
The app, which has gone missing from the iOS App Store as of Thursday afternoon, has no future at Yahoo, however.
“We will be discontinuing the Stamped product by the end of the year. It’s sad to let something we love go,” Stamped wrote on its website.
It will build a new app for Yahoo—something “big, mobile and new”—but Yahoo isn’t saying yet what it is. Stamped said it will provide a tool to let users export the data they’ve uploaded to its app.
Mayer was made CEO of Yahoo in July after being a top executive at Google almost since its founding. Just this week she talked about her plans to improve Yahoo’s presence on mobile devices.
Stamped’s advisers include celebrity chef Mario Batali, and its financial backers reportedly include Justin Bieber and TV stars Ellen DeGeneres and Ryan Seacrest.
http://www.techhive.com/article/2013110/yahoo-buys-stamped-will-kill-its-mobile-app.html
