Foursquare deal could be a goldmine for Yahoo

Yahoo and Foursquare are reportedly in talks for a data partnership.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney)

Big data is the latest super-hot tech trend, and Yahoo wants a piece of the pie.

Marissa Mayer & Co. are reportedly courting Foursquare for a partnership involving the startup's valuable trove of location data.

The Yahoo-Foursquare talks are "still fluid," according to the Buzzfeed article, which didn't have details about what such a partnership would look like. Yahoo (YHOO, Fortune 500) and Foursquare declined to comment.
A deal would make sense for both companies: It could provide Yahoo with data that has the ability to improve various products in its vast portfolio, and it would give the often-maligned Foursquare a huge financial opportunity.
Yahoo could easily use Foursquare's data to serve up search results, content and ads based on where is a user is or where they've visited in the past. Microsoft's (MSFT, Fortune 500) Bing.com added Foursquare to its results last year.
Related story: Yahoo beats Google in traffic for first time since 2011
But if a Yahoo-Foursquare deal takes place, Yahoo has the potential to integrate Foursquare's data more extensively than Microsoft has. Foursquare's mapping and mobile technology could prove valuable to Yahoo's dozens of websites, for example.
Yahoo CEO Mayer has tried to re-define Yahoo as a company devoted to personalizing the Web for its users, from content to email to ads. She wants Yahoo products to become part of users' "daily habits," and she's particularly interested in "localization," mobile, social and video. Foursquare clearly fits into three of those four focus areas.
Foursquare, founded in 2009, lets users "check in" to venues like restaurants to receive tips and discounts. It was once the buzziest startup in Silicon Valley, but for the past few years CEO Dennis Crowley has fought the idea that his company is merely just "check-ins and badges."
Foursquare has amassed a whopping 4 billion check-ins from its 35 million global users, and the company has worked to leverage that user-generated data.
On the user side, Foursquare can tell a beer-guzzling Chicagoan who just got off a plane in Hamburg, Germany, where to go for the best brews in the city. For businesses, Foursquare can tell local spots how their foot traffic compares with competitors, whether it's better to keep happy hour going until 8 p.m., and even how well the venue fares when it's raining out. Those finely tuned recommendations, based on deep sources of data that users are happy to turn over, could be of great use to Yahoo.
Judging from past deals, Foursquare could make a boatload on these types of partnerships. Earlier this summer, Google (GOOG, Fortune 500) bought social-mapping service Waze for a reported $1.3 billion. The hefty purchase price shows just how valuable billions of points of location data can be.

Four confirmed dead after helicopter crashes off Scotland

• A helicopter ditches in the North Sea off the Shetland islands, official says
• Life boats and helicopters are used to rescue most of them oil rig workers
• It had 18 people aboard; 16 passengers and two crew members

(CNN) -- A helicopter crash in the North Sea off Scotland's Shetland islands killed four people, officials said Saturday.

Fourteen people have been rescued following the crash Friday, Police Scotland said.

"Our sympathies are very much with the families of those affected at this difficult time. All families have been informed and specially-trained family liaison officers are currently providing them with support," said Malcolm Graham, assistant chief constable of Police Scotland.

There were 18 people aboard; 16 passengers and two crew members. It went down Friday evening, police said

Shetland maritime officials first got word from a Scottish air rescue coordination unit that they had lost contact with a Superpuma helicopter, said Sophie Turner of the United Kingdom's Maritime and Coastguard Agency.

Authorities learned later that the aircraft ditched about two miles west of Sumburgh Airport in the Shetland isles, according to Turner.

Most of the passengers are workers on the Borstein Dolphin oil and rig platform, the spokeswoman said.

Nationalities were not immediately known.

Skies were misty with fog when the aircraft went down -- conditions Turner said are not unusual for that area. She added that authorities had yet to identify the cause of the crash.

The Superpuma is a twin-engine helicopter that is often used to transport passengers given its relatively large cabin, according to its manufacturer, Eurocopter.

March on Washington: Throngs mark 'I Have a Dream' anniversary

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. addresses a crowd near the Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in Washington, on August 28, 1963. On the 50th anniversary of this historic civil rights event we take a look back through rarely seen color photographs from the day.

Civil rights protesters clap and cheer. An estimated 250,000 people participated in the march.

Leaders of the rally, including King in the center, interlock hands and arms as they march. The march was organized jointly by James Farmer, of the Congress of Racial Equality; Dr. King, of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference; John Lewis, of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee; A. Philip Randolph, of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters; Roy Wilkins, of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People; and Whitney Young, Jr., of the National Urban League.

Protesters sing at the march.

A protester sings at the march.

A demonstrator holds a protest sign at the rally.

Musician Odetta Holmes plays a song during the march.

King stands with Rabbi Joachim Prinz, center, by his side.

The crowd cheers during the event.

African-American entertainer Sammy Davis Jr. attends the rally.

Demonstrators crowd together as they listen to civil rights speakers during the rally.

A woman attends the rally.

Actor Burt Lancaster speaks to protesters at the Lincoln Memorial at the event.

Actor Sidney Poitier, left, and Singer Harry Belafonte talk with one another during the march.

Baseball player Jackie Robinson, right, attends the rally with his son David.

A. Philip Randolph, who helped organize the rally, stands in front of the Lincoln Memorial.

Civil rights leaders from left, Whitney Young Jr., Martin Luther King Jr., Walter Reuther, Eugene Carson Blake, and John Lewis stand on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during the march.

Demonstrators gather around the National Mall near the Lincoln Memorial before the beginning of the march.

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STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Two of Martin Luther King Jr.'s children will speak at event
• Obama, former presidents Clinton, Carter headline a second march Wednesday
• March passes King Memorial
• Al Sharpton: Marchers want action, not nostalgia

(CNN) -- Standing on the spot where 50 years earlier the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. made "I have a dream" the clarion call of the civil rights movement, a broader call for equality rang out Saturday.

Thousands rallied at the National Mall to mark the 50th anniversary of the historic August 28, 1963, March on Washington.

Leaders from civil rights, religious and civic organizations paid tribute to those who fought and continue to fight for racial equality, but the slate of demands today has expanded to other hot-button issues.

Income inequality, discrimination based on sexual orientation and mistreatment of immigrants were all themes espoused by the dozens of speakers.

"I am a daughter of the civil rights movement, and as a daughter I am a beneficiary of all the good that resulted from the hard work, the sweat and tears, and the blood that was shed by the leaders and doers of that movement," Jennifer Jones Austin of the Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies told the crowd. "And as a daughter and a beneficiary, I am now the burden-bearer of this generation's civil rights movement."

That burden, she said, includes equal rights for gays and fights against poverty and gun violence.

Attorney General Eric Holder credited King's famous words for providing a foundation for the progress of the civil rights movement.

"Our focus has broadened to include the cause of women, of Latinos, of Asian-Americans, of lesbians, of gays, of people with disabilities and of countless others across this great country who still yearn for equality, opportunity and fair treatment," he said.

Many speakers invoked the killing of Trayvon Martin as an example of where they see a lack of justice for African-Americans.

Martin Luther King III, son of the civil rights icon, said his father's vision was a nation without racial discrimination. "But sadly, the tears of Trayvon Martin's mother and father reminds us that far too frequently, the color of one's skin remains a license to profile."

In 1963, "we could not have imagined we'd be here 50 years later with a black president and a black attorney general, but that's a measure of how far we have come," civil rights activist Julian Bond said. "But still, we march."

August 28, 1963, was one of the most important days for the civil rights movement. Over 200,000 people gathered on the National Mall in Washington to hear Martin Luther King Jr. deliver his famous "I Have a Dream" speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Magnum photographer Leonard Freed (1929-2006) was there documenting that historic day.

The crowd gathers at the National Mall.

People sing together during the march.

Though the name March on Washington"is well known, the full title of the gathering the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.

People sing together during the rally.

Ten leaders of the civil rights movement met with President John F. Kennedy, Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, Labor Secretary W. Willard Wirtz and Burke Marshall, head of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, in the Cabinet room of the White House during the demonstration.

People watch and wait for speakers.

Though the most iconic shot from the March on Washington may be of King waving to the crowd, Freed moved throughout the crowd finding the faces that weren't seen in the papers.

The marchers were entertained by big names such as Ossie Davis, Joan Baez, Bobby Darin, Odetta, Bob Dylan, Peter, Paul and Mary, and Jackie Robinson.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the historic march.

Leonard Freed's March on Washington

Leonard Freed's March on Washington

Leonard Freed's March on Washington

Leonard Freed's March on Washington

Leonard Freed's March on Washington

Leonard Freed's March on Washington

Leonard Freed's March on Washington

Leonard Freed's March on Washington

Leonard Freed's March on Washington

Leonard Freed's March on Washington

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Photos: Leonard Freed's March on Washington

50 years after MLK's freedom call

Minorities have never wished their way to freedom, he said, but have worked their way up, and must continue to do so.

"While I'm elated that we've come today to march on Washington, we must not only march on Washington. We must stand for a genuine living wage and jobs. We must stand to end the 'stand your ground' laws. We must stand against stop-and-frisk, must must stand against voter suppression," Bishop Darin Moore of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church said.

Another theme repeated throughout the event was outrage at the Supreme Court decision that threw out a key part of the Voting Rights Act.

The court in June invalidated the formula used to determine which states or local jurisdictions -- mostly in the South -- could remain under special federal oversight, requiring approval from Washington before they can change voting procedures.

That blunted much of the government's enforcement power in states and localities with a history of discrimination at the polls.

"We didn't forget the price they paid," the Rev. Al Sharpton said, referring to those on the front lines of the civil rights movement. "We've fought too hard, our parents shed too much blood, there was too many nights in jail, for you to take our vote from us now."

Sharpton said organized protests to demand a reinstatement of the provisions are forthcoming.

Kathleen Johnson and Jean McRae were at the first March on Washington 50 years ago, and as the crowd grew on Saturday, they reflected on the span in between.

"It was a wonderful experience (in 1963) because prior to that there were many things going on in the United States that were not right," Johnson said.

The injustices that existed in 1963 convinced Johnson and her family and friends to attend the march.

"We had to be there. We had to be a part of it," she said.

The fight for equality that the original march embodied remains a work in progress, McRae said, which makes Saturday's event so important.

"We need this, especially now," she said.

Both women wore buttons from the march in 1963.

Saturday's event is the first of two rallies to mark the anniversary.

President Barack Obama headlines another event Wednesday, the exact anniversary of the March on Washington, where MLK delivered the now-famous speech at the Lincoln Memorial.

The Wednesday event will include a longer march through Washington and speeches by Obama and former presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter.