Search engine company Yahoo announced yesterday that it would buy BuzzTracker, owned by Participate Media, in an attempt to attract more visitors to its site. BuzzTracker is uses a combination of editorial selection and complex algorithms to aggregate content from all over the Web, creating "custom content feeds" automatically that aggregate news, blogs, reviews, discussions, video and audio. However, in order to ensure quality, it handpicks the 90,000 or so sources from which it aggregates content. Although financial details from the deal have not yet been disclosed, sources familiar with BuzzTracker have quoted a figure of $5 milllion.
The purchase is part of Yahoo"s renewed efforts to link to more third-party content, rather than pointing at its own owned-and-operated properties. As part of the deal, Participate"s CEO Alan Warms will become vice president and general manager of Yahoo News, which reportedly has an audience of 36 million unique visitors a month.