Associated Content is a site where users submit original content and depending on how many times their work is viewed, are paid accordingly. Yahoo!'s acquisition of AC gives the search company access to nearly 400,000 freelance writers.
The acquisition, expected to close in this year's third quarter, is supposed to help Yahoo! in its mission to present more original content as well as create more opportunities to sell online advertising and revive its revenue growth. The acquisition is rumored to have cost Yahoo! somewhere in the region of $90 million to just over $100 million.
In August last year, Yahoo! CEO Carol Bartz surprised everyone by declaring Yahoo! was never a search company. Bartz said in an interview with the New York Times that "her fortunes are tied to her pages," and that she was more than happy with the company's 20 percent of the search market. Bartz went on to say the company would be investing more in its pages so it could stop relying on third-party content and instead provide its own original content, something the company already does with sports content.
