Yahoo wants to buy Tumblr.
Will Facebook swoop in at the last minute?
By Om Malik | gigaom.com | Thursday May 16, 2013
Yahoo chief executive Marissa Mayer thinks that what Blogger did for Google, Tumblr could do for her aging Internet company — make it relevant and a major player on the modern web. And for that she is willing to spend a billion dollars (or perhaps higher) in order to buy New York-based social publishing and sharing platform. ……//……
Tumblr says it has nearly 108 million blogs, over 50 billion posts and it is said to have 117 million visitors a month according to comScore. Forbes.com reports that Tumblr made $13 million in 2012 and is looking to bring in about $100 million, thanks to its new advertising initiatives. The company also recently introduced mobile advertising. For Yahoo this could be a much needed foray into mobile advertising and also into pushing new native ad-formats that help diversify its ad business away from the usual web advertising.
David Karp, one of the co-founders and chief executive of Tumblr has been seen around in Silicon Valley. Tumblr has been trying to raise a new round of funding but its slower than expected revenue ramp has acted as a dampener for the fundraising efforts. Tumblr has raised a total of $125 million and is rumored to be valued at $800 million. Tumblr investors include Union Square Ventures, Spark Capital, Sequoia Capital and Greylock Ventures.
But Yahoo may not be alone in courting Tumblr. In November 2012, my colleague Mathew Ingram argued that Facebook and Tumblr should poke each other. Surprise surprise, it is something that is nagging Yahoo bigwigs. ……
» Read in full report on gigaom.com
(Source: ysvoice)
