Yahoo Buys Social TV Software Company IntoNow
Yahoo are reported to have expanded their TV information sharing and social networking capabilities, with a move to snap up IntoNow for the price tag of $20M, regardless of the fact that their new acquisition was very new, having only been in business for 12 weeks beforehand (formed in January).
IntoNow’s exclusive mobile software is said to be used to help people interact with their friends to easily let them know what TV show they are currently watching watching.
The deal was announced on Monday, as Yahoo are thought to be making more efforts to convince users to use their popular web hub (famous for its long-standing search engine, news, and e-mail services) as their main online social networking base as well (as opposed to rivals such as Facebook or Twitter), with video hosting and online TV thought to be a useful and innovative method in which to do this.
The app works by sound recognition technology, that is said to recognise the show being watched (within its large database of ‘ the previous five years of television content archived’), purely by listening to the sound blaring out of the speakers, and then ‘checking in’ the show being watched in a similar way to Facebook’s ‘Places’ service, just for TV shows instead.
IntoNow also allows users to identify what their favorite commercials, a feature which could come in handy in the ever-expanding world of personalised advertising, possibly a key source of ad income for a stuttering Yahoo in the developing market. Pepsi seem to have found a gap in the market with this technique, getting in first by offering a free can of Pepsi Max (via coupon) to anyone who ‘tags’ the latest advert for the product.
The sale of IntoNow is thought to be seen as turning towards ‘mobile Internet marketing’ in order to help Yahoo’s profits, which while still positive ($223m (£135m)) for the first quarter of 2011, is a decline on the $310m made by the Internet giant this time last year.
Yahoo director Bill Shaughnessy said of the deal: “Relying on social channels as a means for discovering content – whether it’s on a PC, mobile device, or TV – is rapidly on the rise. IntoNow’s technology combines the ability to check-in to what a consumer is watching, engage in conversations, and find related content.”
The new app (which is free on smartphones) seems to be another good advancement in technology and networking, and whilst it could be a good purchase for Yahoo, what about the user. Now there might not be any hiding place if you are embarrassed by your TV viewing habits…
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[...] Examples of interaction were given that included sporting event viewers voting on the winner in-game, purchasing items via remote control and tagging shows using the IntoNow service which Yahoo brought last year. [...]