Nicholas Carlson writes:

Primarily Yahoo wants to buy small, failed startups with excellent teams for very little money. This is what's known as the "acqui-hire."

Otherwise, Yahoo has a lot of cash available and it's willing to spend big, but only if the target company meets two criteria. It must:

1. Be very strong in mobile.

2. Enhance one of Yahoo's current brands, in particular Yahoo Sports and Yahoo Finance. As an example, this source said that if Turner had not just acquired Bleacher Report for $200 million, it would be the kind of company that Yahoo, under Mayer, would have taken a long look at acquiring.

While Yahoo has strong reach and 70+ mobile apps, users don't spend much time with its product on mobile.

Another reason why Yahoo needs mobile help is that it depends on traffic to its Webpages from home PCs, and those are being replaced by tablets.

Wait, Yahoo has 70 mobile apps?! Really???

I do love Sportacular. I don't know about any of the others.

Prediction: Expect Yahoo to reduce its number of mobile apps to 12-15.

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/marissa-mayer-at-goldman-conference-2013-2

I love this meme:

Update, February 2013. Yahoo has bought 4 startups in 5 months: 2 mobile(Stamped and Alike), 1 videoconferencing (OnTheAir), and 1 Web company (Snip.It) ... More to come.

The appeal of Alike according to the Merc:

The Alike team created an app that focuses on personalization -- using the restaurants and places you like to find the ones you'll love. We were very impressed by the team and their approach to building personalized experiences. The app was founded by Maria Zhang, previously of Microsoft and Zillow, who has said in interviews that the app is more founded on the idea of "big data" than local recommendations.

Expect more personalization, mobile, and big data acquisitions in Yahoo's future.

More about Yahoo's first four acquisitions:

• Stamped - Oct 25 - 10 employees
• OnTheAir - Dec 4 - 5 employees
• Snip.It - Jan 22 - $10mm+earnouts - 10 employees
• PropeId (Alike) - Feb 12 - at least 4 employees

Who will Yahoo acquire next? Time will tell.

See also: Yahoo will use Google contextual ads.

It's only a month later (3/20) and Yahoo bought Jybe. Price not disclosed. 5 employees.

Yahoo's future is mobile. And personal.

One week later (3/25) and Yahoo bought Summly for $30 million (90% cash). 2 employees.

Yahoo's future is mobile. And personal.

Next up: buy a controlling stake in Daily Motion for $200 million:

http://pandawhale.com/post/18431/marissa-mayers-plan-reduce-content-costs-to-nothing

Yahoo has now acquired a total of 9 companies:

http://pandodaily.com/2013/05/09/cant-raise-a-series-a-just-sell-yourself-to-yahoo/

Also, Yahoo's 10-Q for Q1 2013 says that Snip It, Alike, and Jybe combined cost less than $10 million. 

Meanwhile Yahoo is paying David Karp $110 million to stay for 4 years:

http://www.businessinsider.com/yahoo-pays-david-karp-110-million-2013-8

Yahoo acquisitions 2013 summary: 12 startups and counting...

• Stamped - Oct 25 - 10 employees
• OnTheAir - Dec 4 - 5 employees
• Snip.It - Jan 22 - 10 employees
• PropeId (Alike) - Feb 12 - at least 4 employees
• Jybe - Mar 20 - 5 employees
• Summly - Mar 25 - $30mm - 2 employees
• Astrid - May - 4 employees
• MileWise - May - 6 employees
• GoPollGo - May - 3 employees
• Tumblr - May 20 - $1.1 billion - 200 employees
• BigNoggins - July 1 - 1 employee
• Qwiki - July 2 - $50mm - 12 employees
• Xobni - July 3 - $60mm - 40 employees

2 employees - 30 MM??? the hell.  oh wait, was that the news summarizing app developed by the teenager?update this for Tumblr and that gaming app!

Which gaming app?

Yeah, Summly was the British teenager and Yahoo paid that much to have a free and clear license of the summarization technology from SRI so they can use it in many Yahoo products:

http://pandawhale.com/post/18378/yahoo-paid-30-million-in-cash-for-18-months-of-summly-founders-time-kara-swisher-media-allthingsd

(Yahoo did not buy Summly for the product, which was summarily shut down upon acquisition.)

Okay, I'm updating, because on 7/2 Yahoo bought NY-based 12-person Qwiki for $50 million:

http://techcrunch.com/2013/07/02/yahoo-acquires-qwiki-for-around-50-million/

...and on 7/3 Yahoo bought 40-person Xobni for... let's say $60 million:

http://techcrunch.com/2013/07/03/source-xobni-was-acquired-for-more-than-60-million/

That's three companies in three days, for those keeping score at home.

Pando Daily says Yahoo has made 17 acquisitions so far:

http://pandodaily.com/2013/07/04/is-mayer-aiming-for-a-turnaround-of-the-stock-or-a-turnaround-of-the-business/

I wonder which ones I've missed.

Why Yahoo has bought 18 Startups:

http://www.businessinsider.com/yahoos-acquisitions-since-marissa-mayer-became-ceo-2013-7?op=1

Yahoo is trying to buy Imgur:

http://pandawhale.com/post/33230/yahoo-acquisition-rumor-imgur