Yahoo! Buys Tumblr, Users to Flee?
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Yahoo! has finally bought Tumblr. It paid 1.1B for the community which is not bad at all. Yahoo! has been irrelevant for a long time, so this purchase could breathe new life into its brand. The problem is not every Tumblr user is happy about this move. As WordPress’ Matt Mullenweg has suggested, Tumblr to WordPress imports have spiked since the rumors of the deal started spreading.
imports have actually spiked on the rumors even though it’s Sunday: normally we import 400-600 posts an hour from Tumblr, last hour it was over 72,000…
I’m more interested to know what they would have done over the next 5-10 years as an independent company. I think we’re at the cusp of understanding the ultimate value of web publishing platforms, particularly ones that work cross-domain
Yahoo! does not have the best track record when it comes to what it does with its acquisitions. The good news is it has a new management so there is a slight chance things could go right for it this time. Considering that Tumblr has a lot of questionable content for Yahoo! to deal with, its future remains uncertain.
