Andre Yoskowitz
19 Jul 2010 22:54
If you are an active Twitter user, you have undoubtedly used or seen the URL shortener bit.ly.
Gigaom is reporting today that Yahoo is actively considering acquiring the shortening service, with interest growing over the past two months.
Bit.ly is said to have raised up to $5 million in venture capital since its launch in early 2009.
Although unconfirmed, Bit.ly was reportedly asking for up to $100 million in a sale to Google.
Says the source: "What Yahoo wants to do is aggregate its users’ activities from around the web. The Facebook Connect integration is the first in a string of coming deals with other social sites… And now, at the center of Yahoo’s new open social strategy, is a product called Yahoo Updates, which consists of activity streams shown in Yahoo Mail, on its front page, in Yahoo Messenger clients and on its toolbars."
The larger question remains, however, whether Bit.ly, which tracks the click-performance of the shortened URLs, and any conversations linked to that URL, is worth the multi-million dollar valuation.