Yahoo plans to buy Bix.com, a website that lets users create online contests, as part of its push into offering more online social media services. Mike Speiser, Bix.com’s president and chief executive, posted a note on the website announcing the planned acquisition. The deal will help create a larger audience for Bix users, he said.Bix.com users create contests and then ask others to submit entries. Contest subjects include lip-synching, photography, dance, beauty and many others. Viewers cast votes, and winners can receive prizes if the contest creator offers one. Some contests are sponsored by companies that view them as promotional opportunities. In a Yahoo blog posting on Thursday, Bradley Horowitz, Yahoo vice president of product strategy, described the site as offering American Idol fans the opportunity to play the role of the show’s producer, a contestant and Simon Cowell, a popular judge on the amateur singer contest TV program. Once Bix.com becomes part of Yahoo, users can expect more community features and more entertaining content, Speiser said. In addition, Yahoo is already looking into how it might integrate Bix with other offerings such as Yahoo Groups, Yahoo Messenger and Yahoo Video, Horowitz said. Bix.com, founded in January, joins several other social media companies acquired by Yahoo including Flickr, Jumpcut, Del.icio.us and Upcoming.org. Yahoo competitor Google has also been aggressively pushing into the entertainment and social online offerings arena. Google recently bought YouTube, the popular online video-sharing site.Speiser will become vice president of community for Yahoo’s communities group. Speiser was one of the founders of Epinions, a popular website that lets users share their experiences using a wide range of products that they’ve bought.-Nancy Gohring, IDG News Service (Dublin Bureau)Related Links: Google to Pick Up YouTube in $1.65B Stock Deal Google YouTube Buy Lends Weight to Media DealsCheck out our CIO News Alerts and Tech Informer pages for more updated news coverage. Related content brandpost Resilient data backup and recovery is critical to enterprise success As global data volumes rise, business must prioritize their resiliency strategies. By Neal Weinberg Jun 01, 2023 4 mins Security brandpost Democratizing HPC with multicloud to accelerate engineering innovations Cloud for HPC is facilitating broader access to high performance computing and accelerating innovations and opportunities for all types of organizations. By Tanya O'Hara Jun 01, 2023 6 mins Multi Cloud brandpost Survey: Marketers embrace AI at expense of metaverse investments Generative artificial intelligence (GAI) has quickly rocked the world of marketing. Sitecore polled B2B marketers on their perceptions of GAI. Here’s what they said. By Dave O’Flanagan, Sitecore Jun 01, 2023 4 mins Artificial Intelligence news Zendesk to lay off another 8% of its staff, cites macroeconomic issues The new tranche of layoffs comes just six months after the company let go of 300 staffers and hired a new CEO in order to navigate its operations through macroeconomic distress. By Anirban Ghoshal Jun 01, 2023 3 mins CRM Systems IT Jobs Podcasts Videos Resources Events SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER From our editors straight to your inbox Get started by entering your email address below. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe