Yahoo! slurps! up! auto-shorteur! vidapp! Qwiki!

Mulph. Feel a bit sick now with all this gobbling

If you thought Yahoo!'s spending spree was slowing down, you were wrong. The exclamatory firm has just snapped up video app Qwiki for a reported $50m.

Rumours of the Purple Palace's interest in splurging cash on the iPhone app started circulating last week, when AllThingsD said the acquisition was likely.

Yahoo! said on its blog that it was picking up the app, which lets fanbois turn their pictures and videos into quick movies to share with soundtracks and transitions. It added that it would be continuing to support the app and Qwiki employees would work for Yahoo! in its New York office.

The purchase is the third since May, when Yahoo! bought Tumblr for $1.1bn in cash. Earlier this week, the firm also reportedly picked up Bignoggins Productions, another mobile app developer.

The web firm's new strategy since chief Marissa Mayer took over last year seems to be to buy its way out of trouble, but it's unclear how well it will work for the company that has struggled to keep up with nifty competitors like Google and Facebook. ®