Yahoo Inc. is hopping on the bargain-hunting bandwagon with Groupon, the Internet’s hottest discount broker, and more than a dozen other similar services.
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The partnerships announced Tuesday are the latest in a series of alliances that Yahoo has forged in the past 18 months with other Internet companies. It’s part of an effort to keep people on Yahoo’s Web site for longer periods and bring in more ad revenue after years of listlessness.
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The turnaround efforts haven’t paid off yet, leaving Yahoo vulnerable to a possible takeover attempt. Repeated published reports have asserted buyout firms that prey on out-of-favor companies have been exploring a possible Yahoo bid that might include the participation of another struggling Internet icon, AOL Inc. Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz declined to address those reports during an on-stage appearance Tuesday at the Web 2.0 summit in San Francisco.
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Yahoo shares fell 36 cents, or more than 2 percent, Tuesday to close at $16.24, well below the $33 per share that the company could have gotten from Microsoft Corp. had it accepted its rival’s offer in May 2008.
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Bartz and her underlings so far have brushed aside the renewed takeover talk as they focus on trying to boost the company’s earnings and introduce more features that engage and delight the more than 500 million worldwide users of Yahoo’s Web site.
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You will see more rolling thunder and a drumbeat of constant innovation from us, Blake Irving, Yahoo’s chief product officer, told reporters before Bartz’s appearance.
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So far, Yahoo mostly has been leaning on the ingenuity of its rivals and other Internet services. Among other things, it is relying on Microsoft Corp. for most of its search results and related advertising and has been plugging features from Facebook, Twitter and online game maker Zynga into its own Web site. Zynga games such as Mafia Wars…