Yahoo Buys Social Chat Service Blink, Shutting it Down

The Snapchat-like Blink has been bought by Yahoo, and just as the messages users post to the social chat service self destruct, it will, too. Yahoo plans to shut down Blink and roll the team into its own development group.

Yahoo buys, kills BlinkYahoo buys, kills Blink

The Blink team said in a statement, "What does this mean for you as a Blink user? In the next few weeks, we will be shutting down Blink for both Android and iOS."

One of the features that drew users Blink was support for Snapchat-like posts that auto-delete after a set amount of time without actually being Snapchat. Alternatives to Snapchat became a thing after the service suffered from a security breach where millions of user names and phone numbers were taken, and then again when a flaw was discovered that could let attackers render iPhones essentially unusable.

Facebook recently shut down its Snapchat knock-off Poke, too. With Poke gone and Blink on death row, Snapchat has been left as the only serious player in the self destructing message game.

Yahoo isn't saying exactly how it plans to use the Blink team, but considering the company's push into the mobile market, it's likely they'll end up working on related projects.