Yahoo buys Pixoria – Makers of Konfabulator

This just in from Om Malik, Yahoo has continued their recent buying spree with the addition of Pixoria.

Yahoo has bought, Pixoria, the company behind Konfabulator, the widget application. Widgets are small web-apps that run on your desktop and retrieve information from the Internet. These tiny apps basically use all the web technologies. Pixoria used to make widgets for the Mac, but had to switch gears and go PC after Apple introduced Dashboard in its latest version of Tiger OS. Pixoria has over 1000 third party widgets plus a great platform for people to build Yahoo-enabled mini apps using our APIs) and they are a great new desktop distribution channel for Yahoo. Yahoo will keep the app as a free product, and apparently Yahoo will refunding people who purchased it in the last couple of months). Pixoria was just 3 guys – Arlo Rose, Perry Clarke and Ed Voas. This will clearly be a way for Yahoo to spread its API (OpenYahoo) into various desktop applications.

Pretty cool. I remember seeing Konfabulator mentioned all over the web when Apple introduced Dashboard in Tiger. Now that I have a dedicated Windows machine, I can check out the widgets in all their glory.

It would be a nice touch on the part of Yahoo if they do follow through with refunds for people who recently purchased the app.

Congrats to Pixoria!