Search Engine Journal

Flickr Acquired by Yahoo?

Yahoo may be interested or may have already closed its acquisition of Ludicorp, the parent company behind the photo blogging / photo sharing / photo uploading service Flickr. Apparently this is not the first time that Flickr has received an offer from Yahoo, and reportedly Google had also offered to buy out Flickr last year.

Stewart Butterfield and Catherine Fake told Business2.0 that “Google and Yahoo want to buy it outright, while venture capital firms are flooding it with all kinds of creative proposals. ‘We get four or five calls a week from VCs,’ says Stewart Butterfield, who co-founded Flickr with his wife, Caterina Fake. ‘We even had a health-care fund call recently. I guess they wanted in on the excitement.’”

Business 2.0 adds “Most of the deal-related chatter is coming from blogging world insiders who have said that Flickr might have inked the papers last week, but Yahoo is holding off on an announcement until March 1. At this point, it could all just be that–chatter. Yahoo’s spokesperson said the company doesn’t comment on rumors and speculation.”

Nick at ThreadWatch commented “It had to, or will have to, happen sooner or later. Last year, rumors were flying that maybe Google would buy Flickr, then we heard that Yahoo! and Google had both offered to buy Flickr Stewart Butterfield and Caterina Fake, the folks behind Ludicorp, who own the immensely popular photo blogging service Flickr have been holding out though, untill perhaps now.”