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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

#32
post #18

Yahoo needs a company like this to address two major issues. First, they lack a social offering. Second, they need to draw in more users, and I imagine Yahoo is hoping to bring over a large user base to their other products via integration with their ecosystem. If Yahoo does acquire tumbler, it will be interesting to see how they choose to integrate it (if they do at all).

Big-time integration would be a huge mistake. Look at how big of a lead on photography Flickr when Yahoo purchased them. After the purchased they were told to focus on integration. Flickr is a shadow of its former self

For the first time in 6 or 7 years I didn't renew my Flickr sub this year.

It's not just that I've grown older, it's that fundamentally Flickr no longer delivers the content and community, and blame for that must lie at Yahoo's door and their failure to innovate with photo.

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

#34

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.

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

#35

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.

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

#36

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?

I'm with you - the perceived values of websites/businesses like this are astounding. Somehow founders and VCs walk away with a bunch of money after acquisitions, but what's Yahoo going to do? Seems like a large sum for an acqui-hire.

Then again I'm a giant noob when it comes to startups, funding and acquisitions. Regardless, the numbers are out of this world.

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

#38
post #8

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…

"how would they move that audience over to other Yahoo products?" The way the article is phrased (though we must remember it's third-hand at best) leads me to believe the strategy may be to go the other direction, to meld core Yahoo strengths (whatever that may be) into Tumblr. That is, integrate Yahoo offerings into Tumblr rather than the other way around.

Tumblr is ad inventory for Yahoo. Specifically, mobile ad inventory -- most of Tumblr's revenue comes from mobile ads. Mobile is a huge area of growth that Yahoo is anxious to stay on top of. They don't need Tumblr's audience to go anywhere other than Tumblr, and if they're smart they won't even try.

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

#39

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?

The Forbes Article has them hockey sticking their revenue.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovici/2013/01/02/tumblr-...

"The company finished 2012 with $13 million in revenue; the hope in this “leap” year is that it’ll get to $100 million."

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

#40
post #18

Yahoo needs a company like this to address two major issues. First, they lack a social offering. Second, they need to draw in more users, and I imagine Yahoo is hoping to bring over a large user base to their other products via integration with their ecosystem. If Yahoo does acquire tumbler, it will be interesting to see how they choose to integrate it (if they do at all).

Big-time integration would be a huge mistake. Look at how big of a lead on photography Flickr when Yahoo purchased them. After the purchased they were told to focus on integration. Flickr is a shadow of its former self

Bingo. That 'integration' impulse by big companies is the death-knell for a product. Better off to leave a successful product alone.
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