Yahoo Beefs Up Their Social Networking Empire

Yahoo Social Networks Hosted on Zooomr

GigaOM -- Yahoo goes on a startup shopping binge GigaOm (along with quite a few other people) has a post out today about the three acquisitions announced by Yahoo! today. First thing this morning Yahoo! said they were acquiring Bix, then MyBlogLog and then Kenet Works. Whew! What a day.

At least two of these offerings, Bix and MyBlogLog, are in the social networking space and would be potential tools to continue to beef up Yahoo's social networking platform which also includes Flickr, Delicious, Upcoming and WebJay.

Of course the 900 million pound Gorilla Facebook has still remained an ellusive catch for Yahoo! Digg, who purportedly wants at least $160 million has also remained at large. My only acquisition prediction last year was that Yahoo! would buy Digg, but they should have done it last year when the price likely would have been cheaper than the minimum rumored $160 million plus price tag today.

It's interesting to see Yahoo continue their committment to the social networking world. I think that over time it is their social network that gives Yahoo! the biggest chance to gain ground in search of all. For more on Bix's features check out Yahoo's Bradley Horowitz's post that he wrote on the company today here.

Another interesting acquisition play for Yahoo! could be CNET where they could acquire in bulk a bunch more interesting social networking plays.

Update: Maybe MyBlogLog isn't being bought by Yahoo! after all.