Yahoo! teams up with top blog provider

Yahoo! teams up with top blog provider Yahoo! has continued its drive to make inroads into online social communities with the announcement of a deal under which it would become the preferred supplier of the world’s most popular professional blog platform. The deal with Six Apart, creator of Movable Type, is the latest in a string of deals by the world’s largest internet media company as it seeks to embrace so-called "social media", the new generation of websites that encourage internet users to share written text, photos and videos. On Friday, Yahoo! acquired del.icio.us, a site for users to share their favorite web links. Earlier this year, it acquired Flickr, which offers a way to annotate and share photos. Yahoo! will effectively act as the preferred provider of Movable Type for small business users, taking advantage of its scale and efficiency, Anil Dash, vice-president of professional products for San Francisco-based Six Apart, said in a phone interview.