YAHOO! : Acquires Koprol; Extends Social and Mobile Strategy With Location-Based Community
05/25/2010 | 12:05am
Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) today announced the acquisition of Koprol.
Headquartered in Jakarta, Indonesia, Koprol extends Yahoo's social,
mobile and local offerings and focuses on the intersection of location,
community expertise and mobile experiences that have become important
trends around the globe. Koprol enables users to interact and share
knowledge about their community in a way that is uniquely tailored to
mobile phones.
Koprol allows people to connect and share photos, reviews and additional
information about locations in real-time using just their mobile phone
browser, making the service accessible to a larger percentage of mobile
users. Once on Koprol, people can ?check-in? to their current location
and see where others are and what they are doing. The service helps
people find local businesses, such as popular shops or restaurants,
based on user ratings including a ?thumbs-up? feature to elevate
favorite places to the top of the ranking. Users can also start or join
discussions based on particular locations and invite friends to
participate, creating a unique city-based social mobile community
resource.
?Users are increasingly relying on mobile devices to communicate and
access the Internet and they are looking for seamless integration
between those devices and PCs. This is especially true in many emerging
markets where we are introducing the Yahoo! brand to many new-to-Net
users,? said Rose Tsou, senior vice president, Asia Region at Yahoo!.
?Koprol was uniquely designed for mobile phones and within a year has
already built a strong user base. Yahoo! provides the global scale and
technology to accelerate growth in Indonesia as well as introduce the
service to new markets.?
Yahoo! is focused on providing personally relevant content to its global
users on multiple devices and access points. Koprol aggregates a
database of locations within a city, created through its community, so
that people can find friends or discover new local businesses,
neighborhood resources and discussions that are important to them.
Yahoo! plans to leverage the rich community of information generated by
Koprol users to make its properties and applications, including its
homepage and media and communications products, even more locally
relevant.
?We are excited to join Yahoo! and look forward to the opportunities
being part of a global Internet leader presents,? said Fajar
Budiprasetyo, CEO and co-founder of Koprol. ?From the beginning, we have
leveraged Yahoo!'s open technologies to help build our business, and it
was just six months ago when we were showcased at the Yahoo! Hack Day
held in Indonesia. This is a great success story for the online
community in Indonesia and demonstrates that innovation is recognized
wherever it occurs.?
Yahoo! will continue to invest in evolving Koprol's service, such as the
new BlackBerry? application introduced today, and expects to announce
new mobile applications for both local and global mobile platforms in
the future.
Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
About Yahoo!
Yahoo! attracts hundreds of millions of users every month through its
innovative technology and engaging content and services, making it one
of the most visited Internet destinations and a world-class online media
company. Yahoo!'s vision is to be the center of people's online lives by
delivering personally relevant, meaningful Internet experiences. Yahoo!
is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. For more information, visit pressroom.yahoo.com
or the company's blog, Yodel Anecdotal (yodel.yahoo.com).
Yahoo! is the trademark and/or registered trademark of Yahoo! Inc.
All other names are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of their
respective owners.

Yahoo! Inc.
Dana Lengkeek, 408-349-1130 (Media)
danal@yahoo-inc.com
Cameron
Craig, 65 9770-9875 (Media)
ccraig@yahoo-inc.com
Cathy
La Rocca, 408-349-5188 (Investors)
cathy@yahoo-inc.com
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