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."

Comments

Languish and Die?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Let's hold on a sec. I see what's she's doing.

[ElectricTurtle]

If you want to know what tumblr is really about these days, think of a sexual fetish, then put it into Google with 'tumblr' tacked on, and you'll get whatever you want stream dumped from tons of different sources. When it comes to jacking (pun huhuhu) still images from porn producers, the fetish catagorizing fans on tumblr are second to none. Granted sometimes the "blogs" (haha yeah right) get shut down for infringement, but there's always another dozen that spring up to fill the void.

Re:Here on Slashdot

[guttentag]

The AC is right about the Orwellian two minutes hate. As soon as I read the headline I knew it would have been submitted by Nerval's Lobster and link to a slashdot/topic/cloud or slashdot/topic/bi opinion piece by Nick Kolakowski.

• The headline evokes childish playground antics
• The headline is about a news story we already covered yesterday
• The headline takes the position that big company buying little company will ruin it, but provocatively flips it around to get a rise out of Slashdotters who will inevitably argue against it

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.