Yahoo picks up URL shortening service Bread

The Bread team will be coming to work for Yahoo as its service is shut down

(Updated to reflect comment from Yahoo)

Yahoo is still on the hunt for startup talent, and now the company has found its latest prize: URL shortener Bread, which it purchased Friday.

No financial terms of the deal were disclosed but Bread CEO Alan Chan revealed in a post on the Bread homepage that the service will be shutting down, including its core products, Bread Social and Bread Oven.. Links that were created on the site will only be supported until November 11th. 

Until then, Bread is encouraging its users to switch their old links to Bitly to preserve them.

The team will be joining Yahoo’s advertising team in Sunnyvale "where we will be working on developing next-generation solutions for social and mobile publishers and advertisers," said Chan.

"In Yahoo, we found a company that shares our vision."

Bread was launched in 2011 with the goal to "help social media influencers and publishers better monetize their online content."  It did this by allowing users to create links that included advertisements, designed by the user.

Here's how it worked: let's say that you found a really great video on Funny or Die that you wanted to share. You would have used Bread to create a shortened link to that page, which you would then put onto your website, or your social media page. When someone clicked that link the ad would show for five seconds before being directed to the Funny or Die video.

The customizable advertisements were called "toasts." Basically it allowed users to take popular content and use it to promote themselves. 

"We have acquired Bread, a company that created a simple way for social media influencers and publishers to monetize their content. The team’s focus on delivering creative and targeted advertising across social media, desktop and mobile devices aligns perfectly with our mission to delight and inspire users," a Yahoo spokesperson told VatorNews.

"Through this acquisition, we’re gaining a team of six engineers and product managers who will join our advertising technology organization in Sunnyvale. The team will focus their efforts on building mobile advertising experiences for Yahoo, and the Bread product has been closed."

Yahoo's acquisition spree

This is, by my count, Yahoo's 24th acquisiton this year.

The first one was Stamped, the Justin Bieber-backed mobile app that lets users “stamp” and share their favorite restaurants, movies, books, and music, which was purchased in October of 2012; and OnTheAir, a video chat service that can be used for casual hangouts or to organize largish webinars.

In January, Yahoo bought social news start-up Snip.it In February, Yahoo purchased location discovery app Alike, and then Yahoo acqu-hired the team at personalized recommendation service Jybe, giving the company both a location service, and a team with knowledge in personalized recommendations.

In March, the company bought news summarizer Summly and then it scooped up Astrid, a productivity app which helps people manage lists. 

The company then bought real-time polling tool GoPollGo and frequent flier search startup MileWise on the same day, before also purchasing PlayerScale, which makes software infrastructure for cross-platform gaming.

In May, it picked up game developer Loki Studios and purchased Tumblr for $1.1 billion. The company then scooped up free conference call service Rondee in June

July was a particularly busy month for Yahoo: it picked up its 20th purchase in commerce app platform Lexity, and it also acquired fantasy sports app Bignoggin; rich media service Qwiki; email and address book management app Xobni; advanced mobile ad technology startup Admovate; and social data analytics platform Ztelic.

Yahoo then bought social media web browser startup Rockmelt and Image recognition service IQ Engines in August, and sports app developer Hitpost in a purchase earlier this month. 

(Image source"