Yahoo brings back former employees with Jybe acquisition
The purchase of personalized recommendation app Jybe returns five former Yahoos back to the fold.
Yahoo has picked up a new app and brought some former employees along for the ride.
Announced today, Yahoo has acquired Jybe, an iOS app that recommends books, movies, and restaurants based on a user's personal tastes. Jybe's service and app kicked off about two years ago.
The Jybe team consists of five people who used to work at Yahoo. The team will join Yahoo's platform organization to focus on targeting and personalization, according to the company.
"This will be a 'coming home' for the team -- all five are former Yahoos," Yahoo said in its announcement. "Arnab Bhattacharjee was the VP of Yahoo! Search Technology (YST), one of the most well-respected engineering and platforms groups in the company. He returns together with former key members of the YST and Hadoop teams -- Tim Converse, Christian Kunz, Sameer Paranjpye, and Karthik Krishnamurthy."
The five also seem eager to jump on board Yahoo.
"Three of us left Yahoo! to pursue our passion at Jybe, and two of us took a longer path via other start-ups and search-engine companies," Jybe said in its announcement today. "We can't wait to apply what we've learned about recommendation, personalization, and the mobile experience to the hundreds of millions of people who come to Yahoo every day."
As part of the acquisition, the Jype service and app will shut down. But the team has promised a tool that will let users download and keep all their information.