Yahoo Building Video-Focused Messaging App to Rival Meerkat, Snapchat: Report

Yahoo is reportedly set to unveil a messaging app later this quarter, a video-focused product that will take on popular rivals like Skype and Snapchat. The unnamed messaging app is said to be the first product under CEO Marissa Mayer, whose time at Google at led to expectations of her being a 'product CEO' at Yahoo, that will have been made from scratch.

As per a report by The Information (via Business Insider), the next wave of messaging apps will include an offering from Yahoo with features similar to several other apps. The report claims, "Later this quarter it will unveil a mobile app that combines live and recorded video and text, blending aspects of live video apps like Meerkat, YouNow and Skype and the recorded video messages popularized by Snapchat, according to a person who has seen the product and a person who was briefed about it."

The firm will be facing the popular and widely used messenger app titans in the market including Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, BBM, or even video chatting apps like Snapchat and Skype, if it introduces its own messenger app in future. The live broadcast feature from Meerkat and Twitter's Periscope may also make an appearance.

Yahoo has lately been working hard on improving its app offerings. The firm on Thursday announced that it is planning to bring four of its apps to Apple Watch by the time it gets launched on April 24. The four apps that might be updated for the Apple Watch are Yahoo Weather, Yahoo Sports Fantasy, Yahoo News Digest, and Yahoo Hong Kong. The company, in its Yahoo Investors blog post also detailed as to what users are expected to see from these apps on the Apple Watch.

The firm in February this year held a Yahoo Mobile Developer Conference where it showcased new suite of services, which will help developers improve and make profit from apps.