Mobile Content-Sharing Site Acquired

WebFives, which offers a free service and software for users to upload pictures from their mobile phones to a public Web site, has been acquired by Microsoft. The acquisition could give Microsoft new technology to enhance its mobile offerings for consumers.

WebFives, originally called Vizrea, was founded in 2003 by former Microsoft Distinguished Engineer Michael Toutonghi, who helped design the Media Center interface for Windows. The service gives users a personal Web site on which they can post up to 200MB of blog entries, music clips, photos, or videos; this content is tagged and categorized so other users can access it from the WebFives home page. Unlike many other personal Web site services, such as MySpace, WebFives lets users post content not only from the Web site itself but also by sending an e-mail with a content attachment or by sending a photo from a mobile phone to a special e-mail address. Users with compatible phone handsets can also install a WebFives application to help automate the process of uploading photos.