Update: Following Google’s acquisition, Wavii has shut down its service and pulled its iOS app.
Google has purchased natural language processing engine Wavii for more than $30 million, according to TechCrunch.
The acquisition has several similarities to Yahoo’s recent purchase of Summly, which Yahoo integrated into its iOS app just yesterday, as both start-ups focused on parsing text from content and delivering summarized snippets of information.
We reported on 9to5Mac in February that Apple acquired discovery app Chomp and was thought to be using the company’s technology to help improve the App Store and iTunes experience. We later confirmed Chomp’s CEO Ben Keighran and CTO Cathy Edwards already started working at Apple on the iTunes teams. Today, it appears Apple has shut down Chomp for Android with Chomp’s website now only listing links to iOS versions of the app, as noted by GigaOM.
The “Download Chomp” tab in the upper right corner of the Chomp.com now leads directly to the iTunes download page and only iPhone and iPad options are available for searching online. However, when searching for apps on the website, changing the platform to “Android” in the URL still allows you to view Android apps. As we noted earlier, Chomp helps power Verizon’s Android market, so it is unclear what will happen with that partnership going forward.
@9to5mac Website still indexes apps for Android by changing the PLATFORM in the url to ANDROID
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G. (@g_____________n) April 27, 2012
Google must be napping to reenergize for its upcoming Motorola Mobility acquisition, because it has not completed a single buyout in 2012 despite purchasing 79 companies last year.
Google filed its 10-K with the SEC in January that revealed the Mountain View, Calif.-based search engine spent $1.9 billion (including stock and cash) on 79 acquisitions in 2011. The more notable purchases were ITA Software for $676 million, and Apture, Katango, and Clever Sense. That means the Internet giant bought six to seven companies a month in 2011. In contrast, it obtained four companies a month in 2010 for a total 48 acquisitions worth $1 billion.
With that said, Google has not picked up a single company since Dec. 13, 2011—roughly four months since its last investment. If judging Google’s spending habits over the last two years, the firm should have already completed 16 to 28 buyouts in 2012 to bulk its portfolio of interests. The company still has time to flash its money, though, as it grabbed roughly 25 of those 2011 acquisitions after the year’s third quarter.
More information is available below.
Last week startup Clever Sense launched their local recommendations app called Alfred on the Android Market. Previously only available as an iOS app, the service uses a proprietary engine to make recommendations for nightlife, food, and other local attractions without requiring the user to enter a search query. Today, Clever Sense has announced on their website that they have been acquired by Google and their team will be joining Google’s to further develop the recommendation tech built into Alfred.
As for what might possibly come of the acquisition in terms of Google services, Clever Sense CEO Babak Pahlavan makes a point of mentioning “Google helps local businesses connect with potential customers and its worldwide presence can bring the value of Clever Sense to a much larger audience.” Perhaps Google services like Offers and Places will benefit, but the company has yet to make an official statement.
Below are the important bits from Clever Sense’s statement:
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According to a report from WSJ, Google is currently in talks with private-equity firms regarding potentially providing assistance in the purchase of Yahoo Inc.
The report mentions the possibility Google is simply trying to bid up the purchase price to make it a less attractive deal for other potential buyers including Microsoft. Yahoo is currently in talks with Microsoft and private equity firm Silver Lake Partners as well as the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board regarding a possible deal. Although, there are reasons Google might find owning a piece of Yahoo’s 700 million plus unique monthly visitors beneficial.
The most obvious is advertising. According to the report, “Google wants to help sell the ad space across Yahoo sites as Yahoo has struggled to get good prices for it”. WSJ mentions the ability to push Google+ on the Yahoo community, but more importantly, a deal would provide Google with access to ads displayed in content from ABC News and other current premium content partners of Yahoo. According to the source, Google is interested in “having deeper business relationships with such publishers”.
Citing a “person familiar with the matter”, WSJ’s sources claim that Google has talked with two undisclosed private-equity firms, and while no deal has been struck, many are already discussing potential antitrust investigations. Forbes just published a story focusing on the antitrust issues of a potential Yahoo purchase, outlining the obvious predicament:
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Wall Street Journal is reporting that Sony is coming close to closing a deal with Telefon AB L.M. Ericsson to buy out their 50% stake of the Sony Ericsson brand. Sony Ericsson is currently the sixth largest mobile phone maker in the world, and Sony hopes to fully add them to their arsenal. As you can see in the graph after the break, Sony Ericsson’s market share has been declining rapidly in recent years.
While the talks could fall apart at any time, Sony Ericsson’s stake is estimated between $1.3 billion to $1.7 billion by analysts. Sony reportedly has high ambitions to regain the mobile phone market from primarily Apple and Google. For comparisons sake, Google acquired Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion, but of course the Sony situation is a little different.
