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Yahoo Buys Konfabulator

Mon, 07/25/2005 - 12:06 — kebernet

SAN FRANCISCO - Hoping to pave a new path to its popular Web site, Yahoo Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO - news) has acquired Konfabulator, a tiny software maker that provides a computer platform for monitoring the weather, stock prices and a wealth of other customized information without opening a Web browser.

The deal, finalized late last week for an undisclosed price, gives Yahoo access to a toolbox of mini-applications — known as widgets — that have built a cult following since Palo Alto-based Konfabulator first introduced them for Apple Computer Inc.'s
Macintosh in 2002.

Apple liked the concept so much that it includes a widgets dashboard in the Mac's operating system. With just three employees, Konfabulator designs its widget software to run on the ubiquitous Windows operating system as well.

AP via Yahoo!

Ok, Yahoo is now officially full bore into acquiring cool companies. I have to admit, if I was going to name people I would buy if I were them, Konfab and Flickr would definitely be at the top of the list. Honestly, though, I am still just not sure Yahoo! has what it takes to keep the momentum going with these. 360 is profoundly unimpressive to me, and you look back over the history of "big" Yahoo buys -- Geocities, Broadcast.com, etc -- and they have a long history of pretty much tanking really popular properties. I know Zawodny wouldn't like to hear me say this, but Yahoo has a serious company wide problem with how they view their software and those nebulous "Look and Feel" issues. Even Yahoo News, which may be better than Google News, or My Yahoo, which just totally cribbed from me :P, don't seem to have that consistency of feel and simplicy that Google has over their properties. Granted they are still light years ahead of the MSN crap, but that isn't really saying much.

Comments

Mon, 07/25/2005 - 12:14 — wow (not verified)

RE: Yahoo Buys Konfabulator

Yeah have to say I agree with all here, Konfab and Flickr were both *great* buys, but Broadcast.com was cool too - pre Yahoo! ;).

Mon, 07/25/2005 - 14:34 — atrox (not verified)

RE: Yahoo Buys Konfabulator

I am not so sure about this the more that I think about it. Konfab is cool and all but how useful will it really be now that OSX has Dashboard and Longhorn(Vista) will reportedly have something of the sort?

Konfab has the middle ground, folks that want the same widgets on OSX and Windows, but just how large and valuable that middle ground is is debatable.

Unless Yahoo! has some other plans for the Konfab engine - apart from what Konfab does now - which may certainly be the case.

Mon, 07/25/2005 - 15:18 — cooper (not verified)

RE: Yahoo Buys Konfabulator

Well, Yahoo said in MacWorld:

Rose said that Konfabulator would not be going away as a Macintosh application. In fact, he said it is quite the opposite as they look at new avenues of growth for Konfabulator.

“Our focus is to never stray from multiple platforms,� Rose told MacCentral. “As a matter of fact, one of our goals is to investigate ways to open up Konfabulator to things like cell phones and maybe even Linux and your Tivo device. It’s about complete multi-platform distribution.�
...

Rose said that there would also be opportunities at Yahoo! for some of the best Widget designers in the community. Although he could make no promises, Rose said he would also like to see a cross platform tool, so that you could convert Dashboard Widgets to Konfabulator Widgets.

And at the Konfab site they note:

Another reason we're excited about it, is the very cool big picture. See, when we first thought of Konfabulator, one of the key pieces was accessing internet content. Well guess what Yahoo has boat-loads of? Yup. And what's really great is that they're starting to open it up to everyone in a format that's useable outside the traditional browser, as XML feeds. Guess how they're going to provide real-world examples of how to use this stuff. Yup... Konfabulator. So really, depending on how you look at it, we're taking over Yahoo! We're going to make it so the best way to access their data is via slick little Widgets.

I think being cross platform is a big selling point. So is having easy access to accumulate content from Yahoo! in terms of making some neat apps.

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