Yahoo in advanced talks to acquire social video app Qwiki, report says

Fresh from its acquisition of Tumblr for over a billion bucks just a few weeks ago, Yahoo is reportedly now looking at getting its hands on social video app Qwiki for the comparatively modest sum of $50 million.

Sources close to the Web giant told AllThingsD on Tuesday that the two companies are “in advanced stages of discussion over the acquisition.”

Originally developed as a multimedia search engine application, Qwiki relaunched as a simple but attractive movie-making app at the start of the year, getting off to a respectable start with 125,000 downloads in its first six days

The neat little iPhone app lets you easily create short slideshow movies using images, videos and music already on your device. One-tap storytelling, its creators call it.

The movies, which can be created with a little input from yourself or simply with a single tap, can be shared via Twitter and Facebook, or privately by email.

If Yahoo does decide to buy the startup, it’ll be one of more than 10 acquisitions made by the Web company since the start of the year.

Spending spree

Since taking the reins in July 2012, Marissa Mayer has been working to establish Yahoo in the increasingly important mobile market as part of her strategy to make the company relevant again. The Sunnyvale-based Internet firm has been on something of a spending spree recently, while at the same time investing in the revamp and launch of its own mobile offerings.

Besides the high-profile Tumblr takeover last month, Yahoo also picked up news app Summly for $30 million as well as social recommendation site Jybe. There’s also been speculation surrounding a possible Hulu acquisition.

As for its own products, the company rolled out “prettier and faster” Yahoo Mail redesigns for Google’s Android mobile operating system, together with new native apps for Apple’s iOS and Microsoft’s Windows 8.

A couple of months back Mail was optimized for the iPad and Android tablets, with a much-praised weather app launching at the same time. And more recently, Yahoo-owned Flickr was also given a dramatic overhaul across all platforms in a bid to breathe some new life into the photo site and win over new users.