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Yahoo Pinkie-Swears It Won't Ruin Tumblr
Nerval's Lobster writes "Yahoo has agreed to acquire Tumblr for $1.1 billion. As you know, Yahoo is a major corporation with a need to monetize its assets in a way that makes its shareholders happy, leaving open the question of whether it'll alter Tumblr's DNA in order to make the latter more of a significant cash generator. But at least for the moment, Yahoo seems content to leave its new property alone. 'Per the agreement and our promise not to screw it up, Tumblr will be independently operated as a separate business,' read the company's press release. 'The product, service and brand will continue to be defined and developed separately with the same Tumblr irreverence, wit, and commitment to empower creators.' Tumblr CEO David Karp, who has been known to make some very anti-advertising comments in the past, will remain in place. Even so, anyone who likes Tumblr may have some cause for concern, because Yahoo has a history of making high-profile acquisitions that subsequently implode. Back in 1999, for example, it paid over $3 billion for GeoCities, another blogging network that it eventually shut down after years of failing the update the property. In 2005, it acquired popular photo-sharing Website Flickr, which it likewise allowed to languish and die. That same year it bought Delicious, a popular Webpage-bookmarking site, and did exactly nothing with it. So when Yahoo starts off its Tumblr press release with a promise not to screw things up, it's a self-deprecating nod toward all that history. New Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer has been on a bit of a buying spree of late, snatching up startups such as Summly in an attempt to make her company 'cool' and relevant."
Yahoo is where the Internet goes to cash out and die.
That this article suggests GeoCities was a blogging network tells me this was written by someone who never visited sites hosted by GeoCities.
Really though, Y! has a horrible track record. The question is, will enough users stay to keep it viable? Will they trust Y! enough to keep putting their efforts as users into the site?
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
The news of Flickr's death has been greatly exagerated ...
it acquired popular photo-sharing Website Flickr, which it likewise allowed to languish and die.
I thought Flickr was still doing okay?
Ok, let's take a look here: Tumblr, pre-aquisition, made $13 million in income with reported costs of $25 million. So, they are losing money, surprise, surprise...
Yahoo comes along and sinks $1.1 billion into the company. Unless they are total fuckwits(a possibility that cannot entirely be ruled out), they are going to want to squeeze that cash back somehow, whether directly by 'monetizing' the Tumblr userbase, or by some farcical theory about a halo effect drawing users to their other properties...
In what possible universe is a service that is going from "VCs are paying you to use it" to "Yahoo wants to scrape 1.1 billion dollars out of you" going to improve? At best, it might improve in an absolute, technical, sense; but be accompanied by a subscription fee or something. More likely, we'll start to see increasingly aggressive frog-boiling attempts at upping the advertising, theme microtransaction, and other revenues.
They might realize some incremental efficiencies in terms of web hosting costs, given Yahoo's volume and datacenter operations experience; but unless Tumblr's previous management was wholly incompetent, they were probably already using the cheapest commodity web platforms they could get their hands on, so I find it very hard to believe that there is enough fat to cut to magically fix the situation without end-user pain.
Yahoo is where the Internet goes to cash out and die.
I was skeptical at first - I was thinking she was buying shit up like what's her face at HP years ago for the sake of buying shit up.
Then It downed on me. What do all of those websites have in common?
Registered users. Many of whom with real and pretty accurate personal profiles.
Merge all that data together - not hard at all - and BINGO! She's got a multibillion dollar portfolio of people's profiles for ...wait for it .... aaw man! ...
Yeah, that's right, for marketing shit.
She's gonna out "Facebook" Facebook.
Flickr is a tremendous service, I use it frequently, as do many many other people from around the world. It has a huge community of more serious photographers and amateurs alike.
Just because it isn't "the big thing" anymore doesn't mean it is dead.
...that anyone really cares about: will there still be porn?
It is bizarre to me that a company with such prowess in buying power, most of the time have no idea how to handle their brand-new assets. It even got to the point that Yahoo swears to not fuck it up, compared to drawing this grand vision of improvement that most of what other companies would've done. Though I think it is the right decision to back-off, there are barely anything Yahoo can provide to Tumblr (except huge sums of money that is). Also correct me if I'm wrong, isn't Flickr pretty successful as it is now, not in a bombastic way, sure, but it's making decent money.
I don't see how they can make good on the promise.
Once they start to monetize, which is why they bought it. (They saw all the traffic, views generated per month and could not stop salivating) They will ruin it.
Obnoxious adds, sidebars will clog the minimalist and clean interface. The exact reason people were driven to tumblr is the obnoxious shit that other social sites insert in to all of your pages.
It also means all of the "interesting" stuff will go away, as no advertisers want their stuff showing up on pornographic sites (Or hundreds of angry trannies crying for the death of all you cis scum)
Really, the biggest reason is that tumblr is utterly replaceable there is nothing special about it all, save it's open policies and ease of use. Once is starts to suck, people will jump to a copycat site free of yahoo's influence.
Hell, that's what I'd do if I were tumblr's now cashed out founders. Laugh like mad, found another site exactly like it (Maybe make some well thought out changes to reflect the realities/tech advancements of 2013 and the near future), and welcome all my users back.
i want to create a free blogging site with no advertising and no hope of profits
it will be cool because everyone knows advertising makes you blind
that this could be the work of the GNAA?
It's only going to be left alone if it can make giant piles of money and Yahoo management doesn't think they can boost some other property by linking them together.
Given that Tumblr is currently not profitable and Yahoo management most definitely thinks they can use it to boost their other properties, a promise that it'll be left alone isn't worth the paper it's printed on.
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
Yeah! Fox News needs to be investigated... I'm sure the DOJ will give Fox the proper consideration Fox News gives when "investigating" for its programs.
Turnabout is fair play... Fox didn't complain when Bush was singeling out individual reporters from other agencies and sending them home if Bush didn't like their stories.... That started BEFORE 9/11. Not to mention Bush took out 30+ year vets (with character assination) Rather and Brokow because they READ news (another editor approved) the White House didn't want read.
is Y!? would they
They need to take pinky promises VERY seriously... Have you seen what those Bronies are capable of?
It's right there in NSFW on Tumblr!
"whether it'll alter Tumblr's DNA in order to make the latter more of a significant cash generator"
Perhaps they could first make Yahoo a significant cash generator, and when they have a proven method for that, THEN apply it to Tumblr and other properties.
this is related to the story how?
A largely irrelevant search engine apparently has 1.1 Billion lying around?
I see mundane things in bed bath and beyond, 12$ for the shower curtain or 250$ for a window treatment kit. People just shrug and pay. The very same people pick a flight that is 10$ cheaper but needs an additional stop and 3 more hours. All the price maximizing optimizing strategies by the airlines have created a sense that" my fellow passenger probably paid 10$ less for the very same ticket" and that changes the way people shop and decide. All these social networks are going to find it difficult to make money off their users.
In a country like India where piracy is rampant and no one wants to pay anything for any kind of music, video, movie or software, the telephone ringtones are raking in several hundred million dollars to the phone companies. So how users arrive at a consensus fair price is a very difficult thing to understand or predict.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Rather did himself in. He posted as news a flawed and forged story, because he "believed it to be true". Or did you forget what actually did Rather in? He then blamed it on his Producer(s), and that he was just reading the story. Or did you forget that part too?
Dan Rather got ratfucked by Karl Rove, that's what happened. George Bush's military records had been published years before Dan Rather reported on them, by J.H. Hatfield in Fortunate Son. Bush's people had been working for years to bury those records. So what did they do? They forged real documents and then tipped people off to the tells.
It was brilliant! Now people think the documents were faked and the story was false. It wasn't; George Bush was in a "champagne unit" of the TANG, and still went AWOL to work on his Dad's campaign. But Rather got taken in by forged versions of real documents that were forged in order to cast doubt on the authenticity of the real documents. Like I said, brilliant!
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
It didn't happen when Patrick Leahy leaked confidential information.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Quite obvious. They were stupid in the past, they are stupid now, why should anyone believe them.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
As previously noted, "Slashdot Editor" Nick Kolakowski is once again promoting his own "Business Intelligence/Cloud" opinion pieces under the guise of the fake user Nerval's Lobster. He's simply trolling for pageviews, as he does just about every weekday... but this one is particularly shameless, as he's writing something almost no one will believe about a story we discussed yesterday. It's almost like his day consists of reading the comments of slashdot stories to see what deeply-seated opinions he can play off the next day to justify his job.
Don't feed the troll. Don't comment on stories "submitted" by Nerval's Lobster.
Pretty sure the terms of a Pinkie Promise require a heart in order that you may cross it and hope to die.
Have you seen what those Bronies are capable of?
It's right there in NSFW on Tumblr!
Child molestation?
Google: Good
Yahoo!: Baaaaad
You may now return to your two minute hate.... idiots
Except you need to start getting informed, this is not a pissing contest between search engines...if it was Yahoo already gave up search;it is a glorified from end for Microsoft. This is discussing about taking over of a social network *cough* by Yahoo! in the hope of reversing its fortunes, and the value of acquisition.
Don't listen to him! Read his .sig. He's misleading you.
Tighter! Tighter!
[John]
Shit better not happen!
Does Tumblr pinkie-swear they are not going to bankrupt Yahoo? I mean, they cost a lot of money, how are they going to deliver a return on that investment?
Yahoo's promise seems a lot like Shultz' in Hogan's Heroes. "I know nothing."
Yahoo seems to operate under a binary system of choices. either they will do nothing at all to the site, including no maintenance (geocities, flickr) or else they will add stuff such as advertising. Yahoo's problem is that their internal bureaucracy has only those two options.
Changing something to make it better is just not in their DNA. I even wonder how many of their own employees use Yahoo as their home page.
And if they're at work, the firewall probably prevents Yahoo employees from "wasting" time reading Tumblr.
3...2...1
With all that user data it would seem rather logical as the next step.
For a SFW (and non-Tumblr) example, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nVjxIKgaGc .
Nopony breaks a Pinkie promise. Or else.
Genocide Man -- Life is funny. Death is funnier. Mass murder can be hilarious.
Stick a cupcake in my AAW, BUCK NAW, WHY DID I CLICK THAT!
Yahoo will sooner or later realize that they can't buy "cool", and that their either going to render Tumblr into yahoo, thereby ruining it, or let Tumblr go off on its merry way by selling it to someone else, or to it's prior owners who, thanks to Yahoo, have $1.1 billion to buy it with.
IMO, the net of this purchase is that in a few years, Yahoo will again not own Tumblr and will be about $900 million lighter for their trouble.
There is significant chunk of pron on Tumblr - ahem, I mean, so I've heard - and now it's owned by a publicly traded company? They will definitely be the first casualty (followed by about 75% of Tumblr's employees in 13 months or so).
They forged real documents and then tipped people off to the tells.
Dude - Bush has been gone for what, 5 years now, and you're still feverishly spewing conspiracy theories about him? Let it go already.
They keep adding more and more slow loading interactive crap to the interface, and making more and more crazy barriers to actually being able to save any of the pictures (short of a screenshot.) And it used to be the uploader had to opt-out of letting people see the original-sized picture, now it's opt-in. Apparently letting people have access to nice wallpaper-sized pics is just too useful a feature.
It's one thing to encourage users to stay on your site by disabling the right-click menu and using 'favorite' lists and such, it's quite another to continuously update your protocols to break compatibility with third party tools, offer lower resolution pictures, and make it slower and slower to actually view said pictures.
Inconcievable!
Over the past 12 months, Yahoo's revenue was $4.91B, for a gross profit of $3.37B. They have enough cash on hand to buy Tumblr three times over ($3.01B), and practically no debt ($.036B).
Whatever is is wrong with Yahoo (and it's a LOT) it's still a massive revenue-generating machine. (Whether this Tumblr acquisition will contribute to that in the future... that's far less clear.)
You may want to loosen your tinfoil hat. If you tighten the straps too hard, sometimes it can cause extreme irritability. Ideally, the fit should be "snug" but not "tight."
Oh, right, call me crazy, that'll work. You're a lawyer. Don't you know how politics is played? Don't be so naive.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
They forged real documents and then tipped people off to the tells.
Dude - Bush has been gone for what, 5 years now, and you're still feverishly spewing conspiracy theories about him? Let it go already.
Feverishly spewing? LOL. The fact that he's out of office doesn't make what I said any less true. If you were a supporter of his, then I'm sorry to make you feel bad all over again. And before you make any more assumptions, I have never voted for Obama.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
...."Yet."
Rather obvious why. Companies are rarely (tempted to say *never*) altruistic - whether they write it off as promotional leaders ("We've got Tumblr, now try our premium email!",) or they mine data, or assume copyright, whatever, any public corporation *must* show their stockholders and directors why things given away for free nevertheless ultimately make the company money.
Standard operating practice in any takeover is to say "We love what you do, won't change a thing, carry on and we won't interfere." This prevents immediate hemorrhaging of both customers and knowledge-work employees (who in reality should flee as soon as possible). But it's fundamentally a lie or, at to be as charitable as one can be, a temporary measure. I did believe it the first time I heard it, when I was young at working at my first job; but not after that.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
I never thought of Geocities as a blogging network. It was just the place where I put up my first ever webpage (for free which was awesome back then) somewhere around 1996. It was on the South Beach (if people recall the various neighborhoods and addresses within each where your site would go).
Does God treat us as servants or friends? Check my homepage.
1. greasemonkey + spaceball killer = just right click and save
2. firefox - tools - page info - media - find the pic in the list and click save
3. save entire web page, the jpg is included
4. screenshot (this is the klunkiest way, i can't believe anyone does it)
Pics on free accounts used to be 1024x1024 pixels maximum, that was raised to 2048x2048, so there are a lot more "big enough" pics available.
And those sites languished/died. Now they promise not to change Tumblr....
"Yahoo is a major corporation with a need to .. make the latter more of a significant cash generator"
Would anyone care to describe how any of these 'social` networks are making money?
AccountKiller
Yahoo Back On Top After Purchasing Millions Of 13-Year-Old Girls’ Blogs
SUNNYVALE, CA—Finally overcoming competition from the likes of Google, Microsoft, and AOL, internet corporation Yahoo firmly re-secured its place as an industry leader after Sunday’s purchase of millions of blogs written by 13-year-old girls.
“While Yahoo has seen its share of struggles over the years, the company’s acquisition of over 100 million blogs written by middle-school females before bedtime has already majorly revitalized the company’s brand,” said BCG consultant Timothy Shore, praising the $1.1 billion purchase of web pages filled with complaints about parents, speculation about cute boys in school, and photos of Robert Pattinson.
“Yahoo is looking to the future here, and tying the entire life of their company to a bunch of pubescent girl bloggers was the smart move.”
Yahoo has projected that 13-year-old Melissa Wheeler’s blog, mellisasworld.tumlbr.com, would eventually pull in over $2.3 billion for the company.
(Reprinted without permission from TheOnion.com)
http://www.theonion.com/articles/yahoo-back-on-top-after-purchasing-millions-of-13y,32497/
There are two different things you can find on Tumblr, depending on whose blog you go to:
1) Porn: the only thing Tumblr is good for.
2) SJWs: the cancer of the Internet. They are a group of misandrist, heterophobic, anti-white bigots who are actively trying to restart the Science Wars. They will cry oppression and call you a bigot when you tell them that "transspecies" is a piece of bullshit they made up, and when you counter them with facts, they'll tell you that logic was invented by the patriarchy in order to oppress women.
Tumblr is the largest collection of SJWs on the Internet. If Tumblr is shut down, the SJWs won't have any place to organize, and we might finally have a chance of putting the cancer of the Internet into remission.
Giving 1 Terabyte (not gigabyte, terabyte) of storage to users (not paid users, all users) is NOT the action of a dying product. The Yahoo! bashing is getting pretty tiresome around here - according to the Wall Street Journal they've made $5 billion profit annually for the last few years - I fail to see how that is unsuccessful. In regards to Tumblr, Flickr is an excellent example of Yahoo! buying a brand and service and not ruining it in the proces.
Everypony thanks you!
Tumblr is crap for the kiddies. It has not value but to allow the uninformed children ejeculcate
their emotional problems on others.
All hail the impending dealt of Tumblr...
I don't think you understand how the market works.
Five billion dollars profit each year for the last several years isn't good -- it's "stagnation". :P
I don't think you understand that I wasn't talking about "the market", I'm talking about a useful, productive profit-making business. Share prices are irrelevant to anyone except shareholders and business newspaper columnists.
Well that is why the phrase used is "Pinkie-Swear" rather than "Pinkie Promise". They do have lawyers for this sort of thing.
Agreed. I pay for both every year!
And now suddenly free Flickr users get - what was it? - 100 terabytes free, removing much of the draw of Flickr Pro (which isn't even sold any more, though you can now buy an "Ad Free" level).
I had also paid for Flickr but this recent change is making me reconsider. (In particular, wondering how long Flickr will still be around.)
Esli epei etot cumprenan, shris soa Sfaha.
Completely unfair.
Tumblr is about fetish porn and cats.
(And oh god, I'm pretty sure the two are mixed somewhere on Tumblr.)
When Senator Jay Rockefeller (Dem-WV) went to Syria in early 2002, and told Bashar Assad to pass along a warning to Saddam Hussein about US plans for regime change in Iraq, wasn't that giving aid and comfort to an enemy? And, since Rockefeller was a member of the Select Committee on Intelligence, and had highly classified knowledge about US war plans, the info he was passing along was not just idle conjecture.
The reason I don't use Yahoo's services is simply that it's impossible to remember your username.
Yahoo forces you to register an email if you want a yahoo account. There's two problems with that:
1. It's impossible for create a rememberable username. You need to append three digits to any username to create one that isn't taken and...
2. I don't even want an @yahoo.com email. I already have email, thanks. Just let me use my existing one as a username.