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The Yahoo board has approved a deal to pay $1.1 billion in cash for Tumblr

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Re: The Yahoo board has approved a deal to pay $1.1 billion in cash for Tumblr

#81

Post by untog »

gnok wrote: post #76
zaidf wrote: post #63

This makes it pretty simple to judge Marissa Mayer's performance at least in the next year. If Tumblr shows any sign of failure, its pretty much equivalent of Marissa Mayer failing at Yahoo. If tumblr shows signs of progress not seen Pre-acquisition, it's a sign of an ex-Googler making a smart acquisition AND making it succeed in the long run. Google is the best company when it comes to making large acquisitions work…

I disagree. We don't know what Yahoo wants to do with Tumblr. All we have are rumors, a WSJ report and tons of idle speculation. Without knowing what the intended end game is, I don't see how we can call the acquisition a "success" or "failure", much less the CEO's. I also don't agree that "a sign of progress" is "making it succeed in the long run". Google is no genius with large acquisitions either. Motorola and Blo…

I also don't agree that "a sign of progress" is "making it succeed in the long run".

What? How can success ever not be a sign of progress? I know Silicon Valley likes to celebrate and learn from failure, but there ought to be a limit somewhere.

Re: The Yahoo board has approved a deal to pay $1.1 billion in cash for Tumblr

#82

Post by zaidf »

gnok wrote: post #76
zaidf wrote: post #63

This makes it pretty simple to judge Marissa Mayer's performance at least in the next year. If Tumblr shows any sign of failure, its pretty much equivalent of Marissa Mayer failing at Yahoo. If tumblr shows signs of progress not seen Pre-acquisition, it's a sign of an ex-Googler making a smart acquisition AND making it succeed in the long run. Google is the best company when it comes to making large acquisitions work…

I disagree. We don't know what Yahoo wants to do with Tumblr. All we have are rumors, a WSJ report and tons of idle speculation. Without knowing what the intended end game is, I don't see how we can call the acquisition a "success" or "failure", much less the CEO's. I also don't agree that "a sign of progress" is "making it succeed in the long run". Google is no genius with large acquisitions either. Motorola and Blo…

Google is a genius at acquisitions IMO. To qualify as a genius you don't need a 100% of acquisitions to work out. You do need a few to work out tremendously. Google has those. Meanwhile, what's the last yahoo acquisition that didn't turn into disappointment soon after the acquisition? We can go back 15 years and be hard-pressed to find one. On the other hand there are plenty of disaster acquisitions including broadcast.com, geocities, bluelithium etc.

Re: The Yahoo board has approved a deal to pay $1.1 billion in cash for Tumblr

#83

Post by patrickaljord »

gnok wrote: post #76
zaidf wrote: post #63

This makes it pretty simple to judge Marissa Mayer's performance at least in the next year. If Tumblr shows any sign of failure, its pretty much equivalent of Marissa Mayer failing at Yahoo. If tumblr shows signs of progress not seen Pre-acquisition, it's a sign of an ex-Googler making a smart acquisition AND making it succeed in the long run. Google is the best company when it comes to making large acquisitions work…

I disagree. We don't know what Yahoo wants to do with Tumblr. All we have are rumors, a WSJ report and tons of idle speculation. Without knowing what the intended end game is, I don't see how we can call the acquisition a "success" or "failure", much less the CEO's. I also don't agree that "a sign of progress" is "making it succeed in the long run". Google is no genius with large acquisitions either. Motorola and Blo…

Google is just getting started with Motorola so it's too soon to tell and I'm pretty sure that Blogger has been a huge success (through adsense) and many successful blogs uses it. It went down though since Facebook and Twitter for obvious reasons but the same thing happened to most blogging platforms.

Re: The Yahoo board has approved a deal to pay $1.1 billion in cash for Tumblr

#84

Post by technoslut »

wildgift wrote: post #69
technoslut wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flickr updated their site a few months ago along with the release with their new iPhone app. It still doesn't feel like a modern site and it doesn't work as well as it should. Supposedly there is a new Flickr being shown off tomorrow and hopefully Yahoo rebuilt the site from the ground up.

It needs an overhaul, but it does what I need, which is share a few hundred images, broken up into sets. I've tried a couple other sites and apps, and haven't switched yet.

It does what everybody needs at this point but people have drifted towards services like Instagram because it is so well thought out and easy to use.

In a lot of ways most people are looking for what Flickr offers but refuse to use it. They want privacy, a place to back up their full-resolution smartphone photos and for a very cheap price.

Re: The Yahoo board has approved a deal to pay $1.1 billion in cash for Tumblr

#85

Post by copper-horse »

jamescun wrote: post #12

I wonder how this will pan out for Tumblr with Marissa Meyer at the helm. If we look at Flick (bought by yahoo in 2005), it hasn't seen much innovation or new features in the last 8 years and has been mostly coasting. I wonder if this will be the case for Tumblr under Marissa's leadership.

As a long term Flickr user, I can only say I totally love it. It is simply perfect for what it is and I happily pay for my pro subscription every year, and I would hate to see it change into something else because someone else thought they knew better than me what I needed.

Yahoo may be better maintainers than innovators, but I'd rather have seen posterous acquired by Yahoo and maintained than acquired by Twitter and killed.

Re: The Yahoo board has approved a deal to pay $1.1 billion in cash for Tumblr

#86

Post by fatjokes »

sudonim wrote: post #3

How is this becoming public information so quickly? Is this being leaked? It seems like it's not beneficial for this to become public knowledge for anyone except Tumblr if they are trying to start a bidding war.

I suspect a big part of the reason that Yahoo! makes these acquisitions if for PR, i.e., "look! we're a dynamic company making huge moves!"

Look at Summly---how much value did they reap simply from the media coverage? They killed the software immediately, and I'm sure Yahoo! Research could've whipped up a pretty decent summarization engine at no extra cost.

Re: The Yahoo board has approved a deal to pay $1.1 billion in cash for Tumblr

#87

Post by untog »

DannoHung wrote: post #80
technoslut wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flickr updated their site a few months ago along with the release with their new iPhone app. It still doesn't feel like a modern site and it doesn't work as well as it should. Supposedly there is a new Flickr being shown off tomorrow and hopefully Yahoo rebuilt the site from the ground up.

What the heck does Flickr actually need? Social garbage? No thanks. Just let me put my fucking photos somewhere. I'm a paying customer for like 6 years, it does exactly what I want. The only feature Flickr needs to work on is making uploads from my editing app easy. Everything else can go take a flying fuck off a short pier.

If there aren't enough paying customers then yes, it does need to add new features to attract new users.

Re: The Yahoo board has approved a deal to pay $1.1 billion in cash for Tumblr

#88

Post by gnok »

untog wrote: post #81
gnok wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. We don't know what Yahoo wants to do with Tumblr. All we have are rumors, a WSJ report and tons of idle speculation. Without knowing what the intended end game is, I don't see how we can call the acquisition a "success" or "failure", much less the CEO's. I also don't agree that "a sign of progress" is "making it succeed in the long run". Google is no genius with large acquisitions either. Motorola and Blo…

I also don't agree that "a sign of progress" is "making it succeed in the long run". What? How can success ever not be a sign of progress? I know Silicon Valley likes to celebrate and learn from failure, but there ought to be a limit somewhere.

I meant the converse, sorry. I was responding to the idea that "a sign of progress" within a year is the same as "making it succeed in the long run".

Re: The Yahoo board has approved a deal to pay $1.1 billion in cash for Tumblr

#89

Post by [deleted] »

zaidf wrote: post #82
gnok wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. We don't know what Yahoo wants to do with Tumblr. All we have are rumors, a WSJ report and tons of idle speculation. Without knowing what the intended end game is, I don't see how we can call the acquisition a "success" or "failure", much less the CEO's. I also don't agree that "a sign of progress" is "making it succeed in the long run". Google is no genius with large acquisitions either. Motorola and Blo…

Google is a genius at acquisitions IMO. To qualify as a genius you don't need a 100% of acquisitions to work out. You do need a few to work out tremendously. Google has those. Meanwhile, what's the last yahoo acquisition that didn't turn into disappointment soon after the acquisition? We can go back 15 years and be hard-pressed to find one. On the other hand there are plenty of disaster acquisitions including broadca…

[deleted]

Re: The Yahoo board has approved a deal to pay $1.1 billion in cash for Tumblr

#90

Post by djrogers »

patrickaljord wrote: post #83
gnok wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. We don't know what Yahoo wants to do with Tumblr. All we have are rumors, a WSJ report and tons of idle speculation. Without knowing what the intended end game is, I don't see how we can call the acquisition a "success" or "failure", much less the CEO's. I also don't agree that "a sign of progress" is "making it succeed in the long run". Google is no genius with large acquisitions either. Motorola and Blo…

Google is just getting started with Motorola so it's too soon to tell and I'm pretty sure that Blogger has been a huge success (through adsense) and many successful blogs uses it. It went down though since Facebook and Twitter for obvious reasons but the same thing happened to most blogging platforms.

I'm sorry, but in the 12 months since the acquisition was announced, MOT has lost pretty much every court case it's been in, had patents invalidated, has been passed over by google for 4 (might be even more?) flagship 'nexus' products, and hasn't built/shipped/teased a single thing newsworthy.

You can't seriously be arguing that this has gone well?

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