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Yahoo! on Tuesday said it acquired the startup behind an iPhone application that lets people know if nearby venues are like places that suit their tastes.

Yahoo! did not disclose financial terms of the deal to buy Alike, which will work with the faded Internet pioneer's teams in San Francisco and at its main campus in the Silicon Valley city of Sunnyvale.

"The Alike team created an app that focuses on personalization—using the restaurants and places you like to find the ones you'll love," Yahoo! said in an email confirming the takeover.

"We were very impressed by the team and their approach to building personalized experiences."

Alike said it would no longer support its iPhone and Web browser applications that tap into the power of machine learning to recommend restaurants, cafes and more based on places users have shown they enjoy.

"We believe that distilled information, deeply personalized and made accessible anytime and anywhere, is what makes mobile experiences a part of our customers' daily lives," Alike said in a blog post.

"In Yahoo! we've found a team as excited about this vision as we are, and who are serious about making it real."

(c) 2013 AFP