Yahoo Interested In Acquiring Bit.ly

There have been reports that Yahoo is in the early stages of negotiations with the popular URL shortening service Bit.ly according to sources familiar with the matter says GigaOM.  Of course, this isn’t the first hot startup to be in talks with Yahoo, many were speculating that Yahoo was talking with the hot location based service Foursquare not too long ago.  That deal was supposedly valued around $110 million.  However, we have yet to see it happen.  While no numbers have been provided in terms of an acquisition amount, it doesn’t appear to be in the $100 million dollar range.

Nonetheless, obviously, Yahoo has intent to acquire some startups – they need to.  As I previously wrote about, Yahoo needs to find a way to remain relevant and in people’s head.  Their future seems to be revolving around becoming a socialized content aggregation tool.  Based on the way they have been moving away from search and more towards content, a Bit.ly acquisition would make sense.  Bit.ly’s ability to track real-time clicks all across the web puts it in a unique position to see what content is emerging.  Which is exactly why Yahoo would have an interest in the service.

Even more interesting is the fact Bit.ly is supposedly working on a service called Bit.ly Now which essentially does just that.  Think of it as Digg, but more real-time, which is another reason Digg is in the process of doing its massive overhaul and redesign.