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Yahoo's mobile spending spree continues with Astrid to-do app

Yahoo's mobile spending spree continues with Astrid to-do app

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Yahoo billboard
Yahoo billboard

Yahoo has not been shy about acquiring mobile app companies, and the latest is a relatively popular to-do app called Astrid. The announcement comes just over a month after Yahoo acquired Summly, which the company has already leveraged into a feature in its own news app. What will happen to Astrid is less clear right now, though the mobile company says that it "will continue to work as is" and that Yahoo will be issuing refunds to some of the people who have purchased premium packages.

Astrid also says it will "be in touch with users shortly to share how to download data." The app was (and still will be for a short while longer) available on both iOS and Android, with a focus on voice-input. It also included some group features, letting you delegate tasks to other users — including strangers on TaskRabbit.

Yahoo has been ratcheting up its efforts aggressively under Marissa Mayer's leadership, with a homepage redesign, video content deals, and a well-received weather app all coming in rapid succession. It has also acquired companies like Stamped, Snip.It, and Alike while shutting down some once-popular services. How exactly a to-do app like Astrid fits into Yahoo's grand plan to reinvent itself is still a little unclear. Last October, the CEO described creating a "rank ordered list" of things that people do on their phones — presumably the features that Astrid provides were somewhere on that list.