Yahoo! planning social media acquisitions

Yahoo! is planning to make acquisitions in the social media sphere‚ according to the company's chief technology officer.

Search engine Yahoo! has acknowledged that it has so far missed out on the opportunities presented by social media.

The company's chief technology officer has therefore confirmed that Yahoo! intends to make acquisitions in this area in the future.

Speaking at the Reuters Global Technology Summit this week, Ari Balogh said the search engine will be launching several new products later in the year.

"I can guarantee you there will be some acquisitions," he said, insisting that now is a good time to be making such commercial agreements.

Indeed, he pointed to recent falls in company valuations as a reason for buying.

He claimed that Yahoo! is interacting "aggressively" with some well-known companies in the social media sphere.

It is also "getting the pulse" of many lesser-known firms that are perhaps coming up with new and innovative social media services.

However, he did not mention the names of any specific companies.

Mr Balogh also confirmed that Yahoo! will be developing some of the new products in-house.

And he said the company will also be continuing its investment in search capabilities, claiming Google has so far "won the game" on search.

The news comes after it was reported that Apple was interested in acquiring social networking site Twitter.

Digital media websites TechCrunch and Valleywag claimed to have spoken to a source close to Apple who said a deal between the two parties could be reached in June.

Twitter has also attracted the attention of Google and there have been rumours of a possible partnership between the two.