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Yahoo Board to Meet Sunday to Consider $1.1B, All-Cash Deal for Tumblr

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Re: Yahoo Board to Meet Sunday to Consider $1.1B, All-Cash Deal for Tumblr

#91

Isn't something really weird going on in the world when you can sell a company with almost no revenue (let alone profit) and no obvious business model in the horizon for $ 1.1B, or is it just me?

You are buying the potential for profit. Not exactly the same thing, but in a way it's similar to buying a broadcast license. Companies pay millions/billions for the right to project some media onto eyeballs.

>You are buying the potential for profit.

So, let me rephrase the question:

Isn't something really weird going on in the world when you can sell a company with almost no revenue (let alone profit) and no obvious business model in the horizon for $ 1.1B,

AND

no bloody potential for that kind of profit either, similar to endless other deals that got nowhere for the buyer, or is it just me?

Re: Yahoo Board to Meet Sunday to Consider $1.1B, All-Cash Deal for Tumblr

#92

Isn't something really weird going on in the world when you can sell a company with almost no revenue (let alone profit) and no obvious business model in the horizon for $ 1.1B, or is it just me?

If acquiring millions of users is so worthless, why don't we all have 100k+ monthly page views and fantastic engagement numbers? Or, put another way: put a dollar value on a speculative Yahoo effort to attract a user base the size and demographic composition of tumblr's. Don't forget to price in the risk of failure.

>If acquiring millions of users is so worthless, why don't we all have 100k+ monthly page views and fantastic engagement numbers?

What kind of bizarro logic is this?

For one, something being worthless doesn't mean it is also common. There are rare and difficult to attain things that are also worthless.

Second, we're discussing monetary worth here. That is, if you get something back for your 1.1 billion dollars.

A service giving you free money would also have 100k+ monthly page views and fantastic engagement numbers. But it would be worse than worthless.

Re: Yahoo Board to Meet Sunday to Consider $1.1B, All-Cash Deal for Tumblr

#93

If the deal goes through Yahoo would now own the Tumblr audience, so Yahoo would have a product with a young audience, the audience Marissa Mayer wants for Yahoo, however, how would they move that audience over to other Yahoo products? An acquisition of Tumblr seems very much like the acquisition of reddit by Advance Publications. They both have huge audiences that are passionate and growing fast but have great diffi…

You knew Yahoo owns Flickr, right?

Flickr has much more power than Tumblr. And they just maintain it for 6 years with same design with ugly looking arrows that used to look nice like 10 years ago.

I don't think Yahoo has a good vibe. They just buy and kill. Flickr is the only one that could survive, which can't be considered as success.

Re: Yahoo Board to Meet Sunday to Consider $1.1B, All-Cash Deal for Tumblr

#94
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is cryptic. What else are your referring to? Dismissing the remote employees, or free lunches, or something else?

The free lunches, no longer requiring BlackBerries, and other things Marissa did to change the culture.

> other things Marissa did to change the culture.

equally cryptic. Care to explain further? I am curious.

Re: Yahoo Board to Meet Sunday to Consider $1.1B, All-Cash Deal for Tumblr

#95
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't follow. Also: Marco calls himself an "employee" as well.

Everywhere else, he's described as a cofounder. Being shrugged off as an employee would be insulting.

Marco is very clear about it here:

https://twitter.com/marcoarment/status/335483318311194624

and it doesn't sound like he harbors any ill will, regret, bad feelings, negativity, or insult by the distinction.

Re: Yahoo Board to Meet Sunday to Consider $1.1B, All-Cash Deal for Tumblr

#97
post #46

With tumblr as a curation hub and Flickr as a pool of images, maybe yahoo will next aquire a video pool (Vimeo?), a sound / music pool (soundcloud?) ... Having a small network of creative sites each with their own communities, tied by a single hub would be pretty cool.

Except that Flickr shows how poorly Yahoo will manage this acquisition. I feel sorry for all those Tumblr lovers that will see their favoured product ground down by mismanagement and neglect.

Yahoo is under different management now; I think if Yahoo has ever had a chance to change, it's now.

Re: Yahoo Board to Meet Sunday to Consider $1.1B, All-Cash Deal for Tumblr

#99
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"This year Facebook lost 1.4 million users" http://techcrunch.com/2013/05/01/facebook-earnings-graphs/ Just to add some context, overall up 20%+ first quarter over prior year Q1. Granted flat in the first world and I could believe a small net loss but I don't see it in these numbers.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/facebook-loses-14-million-a...

http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/04/29/socialbakers-denies...

I'm sure FB does their best to lean on their metrics and spin the best story but at the end of the day they are publicly traded and those charts are not too ambiguous.

But sure, some of those accounts are fake every year. So a nearly flat gain in the US/Canada could well be a loss in actual humans using the service like they are meant to. I don't have a FB account myself because reasons and so I'm sympathetic to the idea that they may have peaked. Just wanted to give some balance.

Re: Yahoo Board to Meet Sunday to Consider $1.1B, All-Cash Deal for Tumblr

#100
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that Flickr shows how poorly Yahoo will manage this acquisition. I feel sorry for all those Tumblr lovers that will see their favoured product ground down by mismanagement and neglect.

In the past Yahoo has butchered their acquisitions. However, Marissa Mayer is a product focused CEO. I see her doing a good job of not messing up the Tumblr experience if Yahoo acquires it.

I think she is already trying to fix Flickr, in fact.
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