TECHNOLOGY
Yahoo adds service
Yahoo! Inc. is buying GhostBird Software as Chief Executive Officer Marissa Mayer seeks to add more features to the Flickr image-sharing service in a push to attract more users on the go.
Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed. Closely-held GhostBird, which makes the KitCam and PhotoForge2 photo-editing apps for mobile devices, will no longer offer them for Apple Inc.’s App Store or develop future versions that work on the iPhone, Yahoo said.
Mayer, who last month agreed to pay about $1.1 billion for the image-based blogging platform Tumblr Inc., has been tweaking Yahoo’s services and adding features designed to win back users and advertisers who have fled the Web portal in favor of competing sites such as Facebook and Google.
Improvements to Flickr in December helped Yahoo top 300 million monthly mobile users, up from just 200 million at the end of the last year. GhostBird executives Travis Houlette and Ye Lu will join the Flickr team, Yahoo said.
INVESTING
Fee decline seen
Average fees paid by mutual-fund investors in 401(k) retirement savings plans declined last year, according to the Investment Company Institute.
Costs for investing in equity funds offered in 401(k)s averaged 63 basis points in 2012, down from 65 basis points for the prior year, the Washington-based trade group said. The average bond-fund expense ratio dropped to 50 basis points compared with 52 basis points in 2011, ICI said. A basis point is equivalent to 0.01 percentage point.
The proliferation of lower-fee products and more cost-conscious plan sponsors have contributed to the trend of declining expenses for funds in 401(k)s over the past 15 years, ICI data show. Mutual funds account for 60 percent of the assets in 401(k) plans, which held $3.6 trillion the end of 2012, according to the ICI.
The U.S. Department of Labor has been pushing for more cost transparency in employer-sponsored retirement plans such as 401(k)s. It enacted rules last year requiring detailed disclosure of 401(k) expenses to workers and employers including those for investment management, custody and administration.
— Bloomberg News