Yahoo buys Tumblr for $1.1 billion, thousands switch to Wordpress

[nsane.forums]

It was just announced that Yahoo has bought Tumblr for approximately $1.1 billion dollars, close to what earlier rumors had predicted. Tumblr is one of the most popular blogging platforms in the world.

Yahoo just announced its acquisition of the hybrid popular blogging platform and social network Tumblr. The deal ended up with a price tag of about $1.1 billion, a big portion of which will come in the form of cash, validating earlier rumors as well as a Sunday report that Yahoo's board had given their approval for the deal to go forward. Tumblr will be operated as a separate business under Yahoo, and David Karp will remain its CEO.

Tumblr is one of the most popular blogging platforms in the world with more than 300 million unique views every month and 900 new posts every second. The company also offers Yahoo a great way to revitalize its user base and expand its mobile ad efforts to a much larger audience. Marissa Mayer, Yahoo's CEO, commented on the deal:

Tumblr is redefining creative expression online. On many levels, Tumblr and Yahoo! couldn’t be more different, but, at the same time, they couldn’t be more complementary. Yahoo is the Internet’s original media network. Tumblr is the Internet’s fastest-growing media frenzy. Both companies are homes for brands - established and emerging. And, fundamentally, Tumblr and Yahoo! are both all about users, design, and finding surprise and inspiration amidst the everyday.

David Karp, CEO of Tumblr, addressed the Tumblr community:

Our team isn’t changing. Our roadmap isn't changing. And our mission – to empower creators to make their best work and get it in front of the audience they deserve – certainly isn't changing. But we’re elated to have the support of Yahoo! and their team who share our dream to make the Internet the ultimate creative canvas. Tumblr gets better faster with more resources to draw from.

The deal is pending approval from different regulators and is expected to finalize in the second half of this year.

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Thousands of Tumblr blogs migrate to Wordpress after Yahoo deal

It's official: Yahoo have purchased blogging giant Tumblr for $1.1 billion in cash, of which CEO David Karp will receive $250 million. Yahoo has gone through a spate of purchasing hot startups recently, such as GoPollGo and Summly, but none of the acquisitions have been on the scale of Tumblr.

And it would seem that Tumblr users aren't happy with the deal, taking to their blogs to post about how Yahoo should do "something really stupid and die." Other users have taken a more proactive form of rebellion and exported their blogs to other platforms, such as Wordpress. Wordpress co-founder, Matt Mullenweg, has taken to his blog to highlight the increase in blog imports yesterday.

According to Mullenwag, 72,000 new blog posts were imported to Wordpress yesterday, up from the 600-800 that usually make the jump on an average Sunday, an increase of 9000%. Of course, this represents a small proportion of Tumblr's total blog posts - according to Tumblr, it hosts 50.9 billion blog posts - but it shows that users are worried by Yahoo's supposed interference.

In the official blog post announcing the purchase, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer reassured Tumblr users that everything will remain the same from their end. TechCrunch speculated that the real reason for the acquisition was that they were running out of money, having produced only $5 million in revenue during 2012.

View: Original Article 1 and Original Article 2

[patrickxaviar]

Users see what Yahoo have done to their previously acquired web properties, and that is reason enough for them to get scared.

[OrioNeXus]

hope everything goes fine for the bloggers :rolleyes: