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Yahoo to Acquire Tumblr

finance.yahoo.com

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Re: Yahoo to Acquire Tumblr

#51

Post by lazyjones »

shanelja wrote: post #45

There seems to be a massive anti-Yahoo struggle going on in HN at the moment but I feel we need to look at this impartially. For better or for worse, the fate of the company is tied directly to the actions of Marissa Mayer now, this is no longer 1999 and Yahoo is no longer the same company. They have this image (which they rightly deserve) of being a big, bumbling ancient Behemoth of a company which provides no real…

> if they stick to their guns and simply improve Tumblr without lowering its value to the community, I can see a real future for Yahoo, one where it isn't just irrelevant, but where it makes it's own products and creates new and exciting applications.

I fail to see the connection between the acquisition of Tumblr and your vision of Yahoo suddenly becoming able to create new and exciting applications on its own as a consequence.

According to Wikipedia, Yahoo's main source of revenue is search and display advertising (by far). By purchasing web sites without any business model and trying to monetise their traffic, they remove value from these sites (for the user) and add nothing that these sites couldn't have done by themselves, in exchange for huge amounts of cash that could instead be spent on developing those "new and exciting applications".

They might get some value out of the talent they are acquiring with Tumblr on the long run, but I doubt that it'll be worth that much.

Re: Yahoo to Acquire Tumblr

#52

Post by ivix »

B-Scan wrote: post #2

It looks that lot of their users don't like that idea: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/stop-yahoo-from-buying-tu... Disclosure: I work for iPetitions.

You might want to fix the counter so it handles petitions with responses numbering over 1 million..

Re: Yahoo to Acquire Tumblr

#53

Post by enginous »

jordn wrote: post #5

I do like how this article from yahoo finance has this heading and subheading: Yahoo! to Acquire Tumblr Promises not to screw it up Fair enough. That probably is most people's biggest concern and expectation of what Yahoo will do.

It's fantastic. Note that it's from their own original press release: http://investor.yahoo.net/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=765892

Re: Yahoo to Acquire Tumblr

#54

Post by shanelja »

lazyjones wrote: post #51
shanelja wrote: post #45

There seems to be a massive anti-Yahoo struggle going on in HN at the moment but I feel we need to look at this impartially. For better or for worse, the fate of the company is tied directly to the actions of Marissa Mayer now, this is no longer 1999 and Yahoo is no longer the same company. They have this image (which they rightly deserve) of being a big, bumbling ancient Behemoth of a company which provides no real…

> if they stick to their guns and simply improve Tumblr without lowering its value to the community, I can see a real future for Yahoo, one where it isn't just irrelevant, but where it makes it's own products and creates new and exciting applications. I fail to see the connection between the acquisition of Tumblr and your vision of Yahoo suddenly becoming able to create new and exciting applications on its own as a c…

The connection is that success tends to beget success, Tumblr will give them a great platform to build their own cool applications on top of.

Honestly, I don't believe this is a 'Buy Tumblr and stick an advert in every ' deal, it just doesn't make sense, they know from experience it will destroy the ecosystem of Tumblr. It would make so much more sense to integrate Tumblr with their own products and build on top of it.

Re: Yahoo to Acquire Tumblr

#55

Post by caycep »

quarterto wrote: post #22
venomsnake wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does yahoo have a good track record of acquiring services and not frakking them up? Not a troll question, I stopped using yahoo in 1999 but for the occasional openid.

They didn't screw up Flickr. Then again, they didn't do anything with Flickr.

That being said...since MM took over, I'm seeing signs of life in Flickr. New mobile app, noticeable upgrades on the web interface, little things like that. I suspect Flickr is on her priority list.

Re: Yahoo to Acquire Tumblr

#57

Post by wilfra »

MojoJolo wrote: post #39
citricsquid wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tumblr is not a blogging platform, it is a social network. Tumblr revolves around the dashboard, it's much more Twitter than it is Wordpress.

I think it can be both. I'm using Tumblr as a blogging platform than a social network. I spend more time writing content than looking the posts of other. I migrated from Blogger to Tumblr coz I feel that blogging is easier there.

It is definitely both. Tumblr replaced WP for me.

I have 12 blogs on Tumblr (and counting), almost all of which I post to frequently - and the only thing I ever use the dashboard for is to make those posts. The only social action I have ever taken was to reblog a recent post I found on reddit, mostly just to see what would happen.

Re: Yahoo to Acquire Tumblr

#58

Post by brown9-2 »

B-Scan wrote: post #2

It looks that lot of their users don't like that idea: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/stop-yahoo-from-buying-tu... Disclosure: I work for iPetitions.

How do you quantify "a lot"? A number larger than zero, or even in the thousands, does not necessarily make that a large share or a majority of users.

Re: Yahoo to Acquire Tumblr

#59

Post by 6cxs2hd6 »

6cxs2hd6 wrote: post #56

I'm curious to see where the integration ends up on the spectrum of mergr vs. yacquisition.

To be clear, I'm not just word-playing.

Will Yahoo smother Tumblr with integration projects like single sign-in, leaving insufficient resources to do anything new? Or will it be benign neglect? Or will they actually invest in it as a social platform (instead of as a database like they did with Flickr)?

With new CEO, hopefully bad history won't repeat.

Re: Yahoo to Acquire Tumblr

#60

Post by UVB-76 »

geoffw8 wrote: post #41
freehunter wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They kind of did screw up Flickr, just by virtue of letting it stagnate. They got lucky in that no one else really made anything better in the meantime.

...and then Instagram

...not to mention Facebook took over as the place for most people to share photos with their friends
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