Yahoo may soon be broadcasting more concerts following its acquisition of live music streaming startup Evntlive.
Yahoo has acquired the young company as part of an effort to expand its entertainment offerings, a Yahoo spokeswoman confirmed Friday. It didn’t say how much it paid for Evntlive, which launched a beta of its service only this past April.
Eight Evntlive employees will join Yahoo at its Sunnyvale, California, headquarters. The service will be shut down, however, and it remains to be seen how Yahoo will use the talent it has acquired.
Evntlive’s website
Despite its young age, Evntlive had streamed hundreds of performances from artists and festivals, it said in its own announcement. Its service let users stream concerts live or on-demand to their desktops, tablets and smartphones. Evntlive also streamed artist interviews and music videos, according to a cached version of its site.
Yahoo has been on an acquisition blitz since Marissa Mayer joined as CEO last year. Friday’s deal stands out because it bolsters a big area of focus for Yahoo: media and entertainment. Evntlive’s team is joining Yahoo’s video business unit, which provides original and third-party news, sports, entertainment and other content. The unit includes Yahoo Screen, which aggregates video from across other Yahoo sites. Popular videos on the site right now include a presentation of Nelson Mandela photos, courtesy of Yahoo’s “Weekly Flickr” series.
Yahoo also has its Yahoo Music site, which offers videos from Yahoo and third parties like Rolling Stone magazine.
Mayer has taken a liking to live video. The company now broadcasts its quarterly earnings in a live news show format, instead of the usual teleconference, and Mayer has said she wants to build up Yahoo’s video offerings further.
Along with entertainment, some of that new video will be in the form of news. Yahoo hired TV news anchor Katie Couric to lead a growing team of correspondents. “At Yahoo, we are investing in bringing our users the absolute best content and video experiences available,” Mayer said at the time.