Scrolling through Tumblr posts May 20, bloggers stumbled upon the biggest post of the day, which was concerned with the very website they were browsing. The headline read, “Yahoo buys Tumblr for 1.1 billion dollars.”
Yahoo is an optimal search engine that allows users to browse the web by sorting the content they search. Tumblr, on the other hand, is a social networking website that lets users post multimedia content in a blog. Yahoo hopes that partnering with the popular blogging website will help the company reach out to a younger audience, bringing a new demographic of users to their search engine.
The announcement, however, has been met with some backlash from Tumblr users, many of whom are saying they will boycott the website if any significant changes are made. In a statement, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer said, “Per the agreement and our promise not to screw it up, Tumblr will be independently operated as a separate business.”
The deal turned Tumblr’s creator, 26-year-old David Karp, a high school dropout, into a multimillionaire. Karp, who started the website in 2007, will remain CEO of the company to assure users that it will not change drastically.
Tumblr currently attracts about 300 million visitors a month. According to financial analysts who cover Yahoo, the combination of both websites is predicted to grow Yahoo’s audience by 50 percent, granting them a total of 1 billion viewers per month.
DePaul student Will Shou said that despite promises to keep the website the same, Yahoo will likely be looking for ways to monetize it.
“I think it’s going to go down the same route as Facebook,” said Shou. “When Facebook started out, they didn’t have any advertisements, and they obviously had to find some way to make money. So I feel like now that they made this huge acquisition, they’re going to have to look to advertisement a way of making a profit.”
DePaul Senior Colin Bowden said the merger was a risky gamble that could go either way for Yahoo.
“I know a lot of people who use Tumblr, and if it continues with the same level of popularity, Yahoo will definitely make their money back,” said Bowen. “That being said, the only concern that I have is that it may have already reached its peak of popularity, and by buying it now, it may not be as profitable as Yahoo wants it to be.”
Some Tumblr users do not think that adding Tumblr to Yahoo’s roster will be enough to give the company the viewer turnaround they’re looking for. DePaul student Kelly Amos said that Yahoo’s purchase isn’t enough to revitalize the company’s image.
“I’m partial to Google based on the search engine’s ease of use,” said Amos. “I don’t use Yahoo because of rigid structure, and it frustrates me. I hope they don’t change Tumblr, and we will see if they stick to their word to keep it the same.”
Similar combinations of popular online sites have proven to be successful. For example, Google bought YouTube in 2006, and Facebook purchased Instagram last year. This isn’t Yahoo’s first popular website purchase either. In 2005, the company bought the photo-sharing website Flickr, which has proved to be a flop in the post-Instagram world.
Daniel Mittleman, a professor in the College of Computing and Digital Media, said the partnership will help both companies strengthen their image as social media challengers against rival websites.
“The platform strikes me as one that can – and likely will – grow and evolve under Yahoo’s lead to become a serious challenger to Facebook,” said Mittleman. “Rather, one needs to imagine what Tumblr will look like in 18 months – I am certain very different from today – and compare that experience to Facebook. If Yahoo plays this well, it will be a huge win for them.”
