Yahoo Buys Xobni for More Than $30 Million

Another day, another Yahoo acquisition.

On Wednesday, Yahoo announced its second purchase in a week with the reported acquisition of email productivity provider Xobni for a price of $30 million to $40 million.

"Did you ever meet someone who truly 'gets' you? That’s how we feel about Yahoo," Xobni wrote in a company blog post announcing the acquisition. Xobni also promised, "Of course, soon you’ll be able to use Yahoo! products with Xobni goodness baked right in."

Xobni ("Inbox" spelled backwards) provides software that aims to improve the functionality of your email by "making it easy to search and discover all your contacts — even those who aren't in your address book," according to the company. Xobni products like Smartr Inbox and Smartr Contacts let you search for everyone with whom you have exchanged emails, texts or calls.

The purchase comes just one day after Yahoo bought mobile video app Qwiki for $50 million. Under CEO Marissa Mayer, Yahoo has been on a buying spree lately, culminating with the $1.1 billion purchase of Tumblr last month.

Image courtesy of M Anima

Yahoo Buys Qwiki

Doug Imbruce, Qwiki's founder, described the acquisition in a blog post as a victory for the startup and for the city of New York, where it is based. Qwiki even included a statement from New York mayor Michael Bloomberg on the acquisition:

“Qwiki is a great example of the momentum in New York City’s booming tech sector," Bloomberg said. “While the company was started out west, they relocated here to be a part of our surging tech community … We congratulate them on their partnership with Yahoo, and hope they continue to grow and thrive in New York City.”

Rumors of a deal between the two companies first surfaced in mid-June. Qwiki fits the general formula for Yahoo acquisitions these days: It's a mobile-first company that costs less than $100 million to buy. Under the leadership of CEO Marissa Mayer, Yahoo has bought about a dozen startups similar to Qwiki.

Yahoo's stock was flat in after-hours trading following the news.

Image via Joe Corrigan/Getty Images

How Marissa Mayer Will Use Tumblr

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, who announced on Monday that the company acquired popular social blogging site Tumblr for $1.1 billion, said she will use the site often to share her experiences and interests with the community, from Yahoo news to pictures of macaroon art.

Mayer will blog with the user name MarissaMayr — note the dropped "e," in line with Tumblr and Yahoo's other product Flickr.

"I intend to keep blogging," Mayer told Mashable. "I've been wanting to blog for awhile, so it was really gratifying to update my profile link on Twitter to my Tumblr page. I will be doing a lot more. I'm not sure if I can create animated GIFs, but I will definitely be posting more pictures."

She's not a stranger to GIFs though. In fact, she shared the acquisition news to the world on her blog with the help of one.

Mayer also alluded to the controversy of surrounding porn on Tumblr with a GIF of Tumblr founder David Karp and herself.

Earlier on Monday, Yahoo announced it had acquired social blogging platform Tumblr for $1.1 billion. The move is a part of an effort to attract more users in the 18 to 24 year old age demographic and grow its social strategy.

"Media is best when you share it," she added. We are a media and photo company and inherent in those experiences is sharing, so it makes sense for us to embrace social media and what it has to offer."

The tone of her personal Tumblr page will mostly be casual: "It will be an extension of what I'm already doing on Twitter and Flickr," Mayer said. "I try to be private with certain details and with my family, but there will be work updates and fun things too."

For example, Mayer said she tweets pictures from concerts and quirky items she encounters on an everyday basis.

"The other day I tweeted about macaroon art," she said. "I was at a hotel with amazing open-faced macaroons with flowers on them for Mother's Day. I had to share them."

Mayer isn't the only one who has moved to Tumblr. Yahoo's corporate blog is now on Tumblr and the existing blog, which was often used for news updates, has been retired.

Mayer said during a call with investors that it will bring ads to Tumblr blogs for users who want them to help monetize the platform. But overall, Yahoo and Tumblr will operate as separate companies and there won't even be a Yahoo logo on the blogging site.

Image via Brad Barket/Getty Images for WIRED

Ad payments to Google, Yahoo not taxable in India: I-T tribunal

An Income-Tax Appellate Tribunal held that payments to sites like Google, Yahoo etc for online ads are not liable to tax in India.

MUMBAI: In a crucial decision that will go a long way in determining the taxability of online advertisements, a Calcutta Income-Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT) held that the payment to websites such as Google, Yahoo etc for online advertisement are not liable to tax in India. 

The websites' presence in a location cannot be construed as fixed place constituting a Permanent Establishment (PE), the ITAT order held. Under the rules governing cross-bordertaxation, having the presence of a PE in a location is an ideal condition for any tax regime to claim tax. 

The ITAT, in its order on Friday morning, observed that the web server located in the tax jurisdiction can be construed as PE but in this case the servers are outside India and therefore the tax claim based on having a PE in India could not be made. 

The ITAT order authored by George Mathan and Pramod Kumar was on an appeal filed by Right Florist who had paid about Rs 35 lakh for its advertisements on Yahoo and Google websites during 2005-06. 

The Income-tax department pulled up the company for not deducting Tax Deducted at Source (TDS) as the former claimed that the amount paid to Google and Yahoo were liable to tax in India. The tax officer held that the taxpayer company should have approached him for determining whether tax should have been withheld in India while making payments to Google and Ireland. 

However, the first appellate authority, Commissioner, Income-Tax (Appeal) accepted the company's stand that since these websites are not the PE in India, the company was not required to pay tax or withhold tax in India. 

The ITAT, the second appellate authority, observed that the PE as defined in the Income-Tax Act is inadequate to cover the variety of issues arising in the contemporary times marked by ever increasing volume of business taking place in the virtual world. ITAT observed that the search engine's presence in a location, other than the location of its effective place of management, is only on the internet or by way of a website, which is not a form of physical presence.

iPhone and Yahoo are Going to Make a Deeper Relations

The iPhone and iPad maker is said to be discussing a deeper partnership with Yahoo to get more of its services on iOS devices.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend. And in the case of Apple and Yahoo, Google is most definitely that company for the two.

So it makes sense that Apple and Yahoo might deepen their partnership, which is just what's happening, says The Wall Street Journal (subscription required).

In a somewhat vague report, the Journal says the two companies have been in talks to bring more of Yahoo's content and services to Apple's devices. That's on top of what's already there, a list that includes weather, sports scores, stock information, and Web search in Safari.

A new deal, which the Journal notes has not been made yet, could include additional Web content from other Yahoo properties like the company's sports and news sites.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend. And in the case of Apple and Yahoo, Google is most definitely that company for the two.

So it makes sense that Apple and Yahoo might deepen their partnership, which is just what's happening, says The Wall Street Journal (subscription required).

In a somewhat vague report, the Journal says the two companies have been in talks to bring more of Yahoo's content and services to Apple's devices. That's on top of what's already there, a list that includes weather, sports scores, stock information, and Web search in Safari.

A new deal, which the Journal notes has not been made yet, could include additional Web content from other Yahoo properties like the company's sports and news sites.