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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

#81

Post by AtTheLast »

Pxtl wrote: post #46
minikomi wrote: post #29

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.

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.

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

#82

Post by hcarvalhoalves »

Steko wrote: post #69
hcarvalhoalves wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is, since when eyeballs started being worth so much? Isn't it proven already that users are like butterflies in the hand (you can't squeeze them, but let loose they fly away)? Myspace is there to prove that being king today doesn't say s * about your position in ten years. This year Facebook lost 1.4 million users, first deficit since launch.

"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...

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

#83

Post by AtTheLast »

robryan wrote: post #3

If this does happen it will be very interesting to see Tumblr's progress over the next year. Will give insight into whether Yahoo has turned the corner or whether it is the same Yahoo we have seen in the past 5 years.

Yahoo seems to be making a lot of the right moves in terms of product design and development talent. I think they have a good chance of being able to help monitize Tumblr in a way that doesn't ruin the user experience. Like you said, this will be a true test for the new Yahoo.

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

#84

Post by nerdnorth »

ghshephard wrote: post #39
hcarvalhoalves wrote: post #31

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."

That article is full of gold:

2012 - Operating Expenses: $25 million, Revenue $14 million (that's an $11 million loss on paper)

For 2013, they're saying they'll need to hit 4x revenue growth in order to hit profitability?

Does that mean 4x the ads for their (fickle) userbase?

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

#85

Post by hcarvalhoalves »

markdown wrote: post #35
hcarvalhoalves wrote: post #31

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.

I believe the better analogy would be buying a broadcaster, not a license. A license is just the government milking the private sector over a historical real world limitation (broadcasting frequencies).

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

#86

Post by w1ntermute »

hkmurakami wrote: post #73
w1ntermute wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But is it more cost-effective to use Tumblr for signaling for HR purposes, or to just pay the recruits more to get them anyway?

I'd hypothesize that Yahoo can (potentially) get hires who they wouldn't have been able to hire with just money by having a different value proposition subset through Tumblr.

Will those hires really be that good if they don't see through the fact that Yahoo is simply using Tumblr for signaling and isn't actually integrating it into their core business? And if Yahoo does integrate Tumblr, they'll probably destroy their investment. That puts them between a rock and a hard place.

If HN is any indicator, the tech industry can already see that Marissa Mayer is just trying to use all these acquisitions to make Yahoo look hip agian.

I, for one, am not falling for that crap. I want to see some real innovative shit coming out of Yahoo before I change my (decidedly negative) opinion of them.

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

#87

Post by joshu »

hkmurakami wrote: post #61

I wonder why they're deciding to offer an All-Cash offer rather than some part of the offer being in Stock. Yahoo's stock has done well lately and should be fairly attractive to Tumblr investors and management. Given the size of the potential acquisition, there aren't that many alternative suitors, so Yahoo should have pretty good leverage here, especially since Tumblr has gotten heat over the last few years regardin…

you don't want to suddenly create a huge stockholder.

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

#88

Post by emiliobumachar »

ghshephard wrote: post #79
aaronbrethorst wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Interesting question - would you rather be a cofounder with 5% equity or an employee with 6% equity. (In the tumblr case, worth about $10mm more). Given that most (everyone?) would rather be the employee with 6% equity, it brings into focus what's really important at the end of the day. All else equal, the founder/cofounder label might be worth something to the ego, but, having been one of 100 or so "founders" of Ops…

I see an analogy to the "Vice President" label in big companies.

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

#89

Post by morpheusart »

hcarvalhoalves wrote: post #31

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 $1B value seems very large, however, there's no question you can add advertising to it and make significant amounts of money. They know the demographics, they know the traffic volume, so they can estimate how much they can make.

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

#90

Post by coldtea »

pyre wrote: post #63
rhizome wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just redirect the money hose to their own bucket. :)

It's a bit more than that. Tumblr will decline if they just view it as a turn-key solution.

>It's a bit more than that. Tumblr will decline if they just view it as a turn-key solution.

Yes, because they can find the billion offered elsewhere, right?

I call BS. Tumblr would accept even if Yahoo wants to turn it into Zombo.com.

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