The popular blogging platform – Tumblr, was recently acquired by search engine giant Yahoo! After days of speculations about the possible sale of Tumblr, Marissa Mayer – CEO of Yahoo confirmed the news via her Twitter account. Around the same time, founder and CEO of Tumblr – David Karp also confirmed the news of the acquisition. Yahoo paid a whopping $1.1 billion to acquire Yahoo and the entire amount was paid in cash.
Yahoo promises not to screw up
In an attempt to allay the fears of Tumblr users, Marissa Mayer promised users that they would not screw up the blogging platform. In fact, she even used the same words in her official announcement. Companies like Google and Facebook are known to acquire other Internet start-ups and meddle with their successful products. With her official announcement, Mayer wants to show users that Yahoo, unlike other companies, will not mess with Tumblr one bit.
Tumblr will function independently like a separate business and David Karp will continue being CEO. Its product will also remain the same and have the same goal – to empower creators. David Karp assured users that the Tumblr headquarters wasn’t changing nor was the team.
Tumblr users not happy
Even with all the assurances and promises from Mayer and Karp, most Tumblr users reacted with disappointment and anger to the news of the acquisition. Tumblr users are sharing their first reactions of disappointment with other on the web – some even with funny pictures. There have been very few positive reactions from users and Tumblr and Yahoo need to stick to their promises if they do not wish to lose Tumblr users.
Win-win situation
Marissa Mayer has made a lot of changes to Yahoo since taking over the company from her predecessor. In an attempt to revive Yahoo to its former glory, she has already changed its email service and search engine. The acquisition of Tumblr brings to Yahoo a wealth of content – more than 50 billion blog posts. Tumblr also sees more than a 100,000 sign-ups daily and more than 300 million unique visitors every month, which could be extremely beneficial to Yahoo. Similarly, Tumblr stands to gain too as Yahoo has plans of integrating its search engine with Tumblr, which will allow users to find content more easily.