Yahoo Reaches for the Arab World With Maktoob Acquisition
By Jared Newman
Maktoob, the Arab world’s largest online community, will soon belong to Yahoo. The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Web company will acquire Maktoob for an undisclosed amount of money, allowing Yahoo to get a foothold in a region where people are underserved by the Internet. At first, Yahoo will offer e-mail and instant messaging services in Arabic on its own pages, with other content such as news, sports and finance to follow. Maktoob will become a wholly-owned subsidiary, while other Maktoob properties, such as the online auction site Souq.com will operate under Jabbar Internet Group. The deal will go through in the coming weeks, and Maktoob will begin to see substantive changes in the first half of 2010. Foremost will assuredly be some Arabic take on the Yahoo Yodel. [via Maktoob]
