CEO Marissa Mayer noted in her last investor call that “Yahoo will have to be a predominantly mobile company,” and now AllThingsD reports that she’s assigned IntoNow founder Adam Cahan to lead the company’s new aggressive mobile efforts. Cahan sold IntoNow — the social TV app — to Yahoo in April of last year, and he’s now tasked with overseeing “mobile efforts, enabled screens (CTV+IntoNow) and Flickr,” according to an internal Yahoo memo.
Prior to IntoNow, Canan sold a video advertising startup, Auditude, to Adobe. We was EVP of MTV Networks and Director Business Operations and Strategy at NBC Digital. And, oh yeah, he worked at Google and McKinsey, too, which puts him a strong position to execute on Yahoo’s apparent strategy to start acquiring and knitting together mobile startups. With the transformation underway in the TV space — and Yahoo’s long-running efforts to establish a foothold in the living room — it wouldn’t surprise us if Canan scooped up another second screen startup along the way.
Yahoo’s first mobile acquisition in the new Mayer era, announced last week, was startup Stamped. Like others likely to come, it was an acqui-hire. “The entire team at Stamped are a natural fit for Yahoo!” Mayer said in the memo, published by AllThingsD. “Their experience building fun, useful, personalized mobile products aligns well with our vision to create the best everyday mobile experience for our users.”
IntoNow, meanwhile, relaunched its app with a new design and features — including a Shazam-like ability to identify music playing on TV — in late July.