The search engine giant Yahoo Inc. (www.yahoo.com) announced on March 22 the acquisition of Flickr Inc. (www.flickr.com), a Canadian photo-sharing company that lets people share digital images with select groups, upload digital photos from computers and camera phones, publish photos in their blogs, share digital photo albums with anyone else who uses the service and alert other users whenever they upload a new photo or album. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.
Flickr, which currently offers a free beta product on its website, will remain a standalone unit for at least several months, but eventually may be incorporated into existing Yahoo products. The site includes more than 5.5 million photos but does not disclose how many people have subscribed to the service. Yahoo spokeswoman Joanna Stevens said that Yahoo is very excited about integrating the community and technology that Flickr has into new product ideas.
