Weekend Wrap-up: Bezos buys the Post, Yahoo tries new logos
Morning, folks, and thanks for stopping by for another edition of the Weekend Wrap-up, where we catch you up on the top stories from the past week.
What’s black, white and owned by Jeff Bezos?
If you answered the Washington Post, you’re absolutely right. Amazon’s founder and CEO purchased the newspaper and many related properties on Tuesday for $250 million, and he did so independently of Amazon. According to a statement from Bezos, he plans to be a hands-off owner and will delegate the responsibilities of running both the paper and its online counterpart to those who already handle those tasks. The purchase of the Post had us wondering: what other newspapers could be scooped up by billionaires in the future?
A new Yahoo
Yahoo has been shaking things up ever since CEO Marissa Mayer’s arrival last year, and now it appears one more relic of the past has its days numbered. Over the past few days, Yahoo has swapped out its iconic logo for a brand new one on many Yahoo properties, and Yahoo will continue to introduce a new logo each day until the new one is made official on September 5. Sure, it’s just a logo, but it’s one more tie to a past that Yahoo’s new team is anxious to move on from.
Finally, Graph Search
Eight months after the feature was introduced for the first time, Facebook’s Graph Search is now available to anyone. You can build searches using a number of different criteria — for example, searches like “Friends who listen to Nickelback,” or “Friends who like Real Housewives of New Jersey” can help decide who to unfriend. You can also add to a search, so you could say “Friends who live nearby” or even use “People who live nearby.” It’s all very neat, but it’s only really useful for your friends at this point.
Amazon getting into the console game?
The Wii U has already been out for a couple of months and the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 are coming soon, but that hasn’t stopped systems like the Ouya and the GameStick. And now it appears that Amazon is also interested in getting into the home gaming world. The company reportedly plans to introduce an Android-based game system before the end of 2013, though it’ll be interesting to see if the company can do so without being drowned out by the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 launches.