Yahoo has officially acquired Tumblr for $1.1 billion in mostly cash, the rumours about this deal have been circulating for weeks, with Tumblr fans dead set against the idea of Yahoo coming in and slapping ads all over the microblogging site.
Tumblr will still remain its own company, with daily operations continuing as they would normally, Yahoo and Tumblr will share resources to make their products better.
On Tumblr’s side, this will mean Yahoo’s great personalisation and search technology is shared and Yahoo will be able to work on monetizing the website, bringing in more revenue.
For Yahoo, Tumblr brings a fresh audience to the service. Google always tries to interconnect users to every Google service, Yahoo may be looking to do the same with Tumblr.
Yahoo has not got the best reputation for acquisitions in the past and many have ended up down the drain, with the website being shut down. Recently Marissa Mayer has been on a spending spree for small startups, acquiring them for technology and talent.
With this differentiation between the two media giants we may see a Instagram/Facebook kind of development, where Yahoo will feed Tumblr with service updates and the websites will become more closed to rivals.
This distancing will also make sure Tumblr keeps working on their own problems, it was thought Yahoo would step in and create content filters, as Tumblr is currently a haven for adult content.
While the move will sever the love some users have for Tumblr, as we can all see Yahoo is trying to get out the way and allow users to enjoy the experience the same way they would pre-acquisition.
We just hope this move works out for the two companies, with Tumblr only bringing in $125 million revenue per year, it may not be long before Yahoo seriously think about blanketing ads on the service.
