What is Yahoo's acquisition strategy? Looking at the list of acquisitions since Marissa Mayer's arrival [0], the theme seems to be pageviews + content + userbase + advertising. This is the strategy of a media company. Attract as many eyeballs as possible, then monetize them.

How does Foursquare fit into this? Perhaps the plan is to turn it into an advertising platform for businesses, and differentiate from Yelp through feaures like better review transparency?

Advantages I see of Foursquare:

- Recognizable brand, offline and online, despite declining userbase.

- Lots of brick-and-mortar businesses already signed onto platform.

- Businesses pay money to advertise. Yahoo can monetize offline channel and reach customers in-store.

- Businesses frustrated with Yelp, now is opportunity to differentiate.

This acuisition could fit into the "media company" strategy because it enables monetization of businesses and opens up offline communication channels for reaching customers.

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisition...