http://news.yahoo.com/yahoos-board-approves-1-1-billion-tumblr-acquisition-103611211.html
QuoteYahoo Inc said it is acquiring blogging service Tumblr for $1.1 billion cash, a bold bet by Chief Executive Marissa Mayer to revitalize the struggling Internet pioneer by co-opting a Web property with strong visitor traffic but little revenue.
The deal, which will use about a fifth of Yahoo's $5.4 billion in cash and marketable securities, is the largest by far since Mayer took the reins in July seeking to reverse a multi-year decline in Yahoo's business and Web traffic.
"Per the agreement and our promise not to screw it up, Tumblr will be independently operated as a separate business," Yahoo said in a statement on Monday.
Tumblr is one of the Web's most popular hubs of so-called user-generated content. The deal will provide Yahoo with a much-needed platform in social media to reach a younger generation of users less tied to Yahoo's traditional Web portal and email services.
Analysts, contacted after the deal was reported on Sunday by the online publication All Things D, said Yahoo was paying a hefty premium. Media reports have pegged Tumblr's 2012 revenue at $13 million. The privately held company, based in Manhattan, does not disclose its financial results.
"Even if revenue was $100 million, it means Yahoo paid 10 times revenue," said BGC Financial analyst Colin Gillis. "Ten times is what you pay to date the belle of the ball. It's on the outer bands of M&A."
Yahoo could quickly boost Tumblr's revenue by combining the website with its own sales force, said Pivotal Research Group analyst Brian Wieser. But loading Tumblr up with banner ads risks alienating its users and probably wouldn't provide a significant lift to Yahoo's overall revenue, he said.
"It's not clear that this deal will be favorable from a return-on-capital perspective," Wieser said. "One billion (dollars) for one company is a big bet."
Shares of Yahoo fell 1.4 percent in premarket trade. They closed on Friday at $26.52.
Yahoo remains one of the Web's most popular destinations, with hundreds of millions of monthly users, but the company has seen its revenue shrink in recent years as consumers and advertisers favor rivals such as Google Inc and Facebook Inc.
Yahoo said the acquisition is expected to increase its audience by 50 percent to more than a billion monthly visitors.
David Karp, who founded Tumblr in 2007, will remain CEO.
Tumblr is worth 1.1 billion?
Quote from: garbon on May 20, 2013, 08:58:25 AM
Tumblr is worth 1.1 billion?
No, but people never learn.
Quote from: garbon on May 20, 2013, 08:58:25 AM
Tumblr is worth 1.1 billion?
Of course not. I do not know why people continue to pay so much for these big web brands above their revenue streams. Like somehow just because they are famous and well known they will magically make money. I swear it is like the Facebook and dot com busts never happened.
Quote from: Valmy on May 20, 2013, 09:07:01 AM
I swear it is like the Facebook and dot com busts never happened.
Seriously, so odd but I guess congrats to tumblr's CEO.
If you have to vow not to screw it up, chances are you're going to screw it up.
Good. Marissa Mayer strikes me as a highly ruthless and unpleasant human being, even for a big shot CEO. I can't stand people who absolutely have to institute a total institutional purge of everyone when they come in, simply for the sin of not being hired by them. People like that deserve to fuck up publicly, and it looks like she put in her first bid.
Quote from: DGuller on May 20, 2013, 10:32:40 AM
Good. Marissa Mayer strikes me as a highly ruthless and unpleasant human being, even for a big shot CEO. I can't stand people who absolutely have to institute a total institutional purge of everyone when they come in, simply for the sin of not being hired by them. People like that deserve to fuck up publicly, and it looks like she put in her first bid.
Stop hating women in power.
She's just leaning in.
Quote from: DGuller on May 20, 2013, 10:32:40 AM
Good. Marissa Mayer strikes me as a highly ruthless and unpleasant human being, even for a big shot CEO. I can't stand people who absolutely have to institute a total institutional purge of everyone when they come in, simply for the sin of not being hired by them. People like that deserve to fuck up publicly, and it looks like she put in her first bid.
:huh:
Quote from: Caliga on May 20, 2013, 11:39:40 AM
Quote from: DGuller on May 20, 2013, 10:32:40 AM
Good. Marissa Mayer strikes me as a highly ruthless and unpleasant human being, even for a big shot CEO. I can't stand people who absolutely have to institute a total institutional purge of everyone when they come in, simply for the sin of not being hired by them. People like that deserve to fuck up publicly, and it looks like she put in her first bid.
:huh:
:huh:
Guller's a Russian actuary; to say he's a misogynist is on the highest order of redundancy.
Gully didn't actually say anything about her being a woman. He said unpleasant human being.
No, but seriously: I was just wondering where DG got this impression of Yahoo's CEO from. I'm not saying he's wrong, just wondering how he came to those conclusions. :hmm:
Quote from: Caliga on May 20, 2013, 12:51:32 PM
No, but seriously: I was just wondering where DG got this impression of Yahoo's CEO from. I'm not saying he's wrong, just wondering how he came to those conclusions. :hmm:
Coming across random news articles on the Internet.
His best friend's sister's boyfriend's brother's girlfriend heard from this guy who knows this kid who knows her.
She's been all over the financial news since she was hired. Just google her, you'll see.
See: maternity leave, telecommuting. Yahoo's damage control team has already had to step in and extend the maternity leave policy to make it look like she wasn't taking a stand.
I'm not even gonna try to back it up with any hard evidence- I just get a really bad vibe from Marissa Mayer; she comes across as really fake and scripted.
*shrug* Yahoo is a goner no matter what she does. That's why she was smart to take the job.... if she's still there when the company goes down, I doubt anyone will blame her. But she'll probably still walk away with a gigantic parachute and since it wasn't her fault, she'll be able to go elsewhere with minimal difficulty.
Quote from: DontSayBanana on May 20, 2013, 12:58:17 PM
I'm not even gonna try to back it up with any hard evidence- I just get a really bad vibe from Marissa Mayer; she comes across as really fake and scripted.
Every major company CEO (possibly excluding guys that started their own companies) is really scripted. I don't know if you can be anything but fake when your talking points are usually written by a team and vetting by a bunch of lawyers and financial types.
I thought Tumblr was Batmans car.
Quote from: jimmy olsen on May 20, 2013, 09:21:17 AM
If you have to vow not to screw it up, chances are you're going to screw it up.
[obligatory Languish post about HOTT ladies in any context]
I'd screw Marissa Mayer up.
[/obligatory Languish post about HOTT ladies in any context]
David Karp, founder of Tumblr, left Bronx High School of Science at age 14 to focus on computers, at the suggestion of his mother.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/21/technology/david-karp-quit-school-to-get-serious-about-start-ups.html
(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fgraphics8.nytimes.com%2Fimages%2F2013%2F05%2F21%2Fbusiness%2FKarp%2FKarp-articleLarge.jpg&hash=2935abd775e46b89f5eddaebec1abee6e185adc2)
Yahoo just ruined Flickr, by the looks of it. My pro account is now useless, I can pay double to remove ads or pay twentyfold for the new pro :bleeding:
Not to mention all the terrible layout changes :(
I find the layout changes far, far better than the previous version.
Quote from: Tonitrus on May 20, 2013, 03:28:42 PM
[obligatory Languish post about HOTT ladies in any context]
I'd screw Marissa Mayer up.
[/obligatory Languish post about HOTT ladies in any context]
(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.glamour.com%2Fimages%2Fwomen-of-the-year%2F1103-marissa-mayer_at.jpg&hash=e893827c7f5bbb68525d67d88012a4b283a8b7d5)
Not bad.
That's from her young Google days. Now she is no hot startup anymore. :( (though still attractive as far as older women come)
Quote from: Phillip V on May 21, 2013, 05:34:22 AM
That's from her young Google days. Now she is no hot startup anymore. :( (though still attractive as far as older women come)
She is only 37....
Quote from: Valmy on May 21, 2013, 08:11:44 AM
Quote from: Phillip V on May 21, 2013, 05:34:22 AM
That's from her young Google days. Now she is no hot startup anymore. :( (though still attractive as far as older women come)
She is only 37....
:D
Didn't she get promoted thru the ranks at Google because she was banging one of the co-founders, basically? :hmm:
If so, I like her style. :cool:
Quote from: Caliga on May 21, 2013, 08:30:41 AM
Didn't she get promoted thru the ranks at Google because she was banging one of the co-founders, basically? :hmm:
If so, I like her style. :cool:
Well to be CEO. even at Yahoo, at 37 she has to either be one heck of a networker or some sort of prodigy. I would never insinuate something so improper though...shame on you sir! Are you no gentleman?
Btw, can someone provide a link to terrible things Mayer has done? Despite protestations in this thread that she's awful and everyone knows it - I can't find anything quick when I google her name.
Quote from: Valmy on May 21, 2013, 08:32:20 AM
Well to be CEO. even at Yahoo, at 37 she has to either be one heck of a networker or some sort of prodigy.
She is a bit of a brain.
QuoteMayer graduated with honors from Stanford University with a B.S. in symbolic systems and an M.S. in computer science. For both degrees, she specialized in artificial intelligence.
I suspect there's a bit of misogyny at play here. "She's 'young', female, and attractive.... she CAN'T POSSIBLY have the chops to run a company."
'course I was the one to bring up the bit about her banging one of the Google dudes. :blush: Pretty sure that's the truth, though.
Quote from: Caliga on May 21, 2013, 08:56:13 AM
I suspect there's a bit of misogyny at play here.
In the Tech industry? No that is impossible, it must be something different.
Quote from: Caliga on May 21, 2013, 08:56:13 AM
I suspect there's a bit of misogyny at play here. "She's 'young', female, and attractive.... she CAN'T POSSIBLY have the chops to run a company."
'course I was the one to bring up the bit about her banging one of the Google dudes. :blush: Pretty sure that's the truth, though.
I dunno, employee #20, at that point Google wasn't very big at all. That kind of stupidity usually comes later, and I don't think Google would have come as far as it did if 1/20th of their staff was just for eye candy.
I wasn't trying to say that at all, but yeah... according to wiki at least she dated Larry Page.
You're talking about an incredibly powerful woman with a brain for computer science. Digging up dirt on her is going to be hard when you're talking about somebody who knows probably a dozen ways to scrub an internet presence.
Quote from: Caliga on May 21, 2013, 09:24:04 AM
I wasn't trying to say that at all, but yeah... according to wiki at least she dated Larry Page.
It doesn't have to be either/or. Generally stratospheric success requires both immense ability and immense luck. You have to be in the right place at the right time, but you also have to have the skills to actually take advantage of your luck.
Quote from: DontSayBanana on May 21, 2013, 09:35:09 AM
You're talking about an incredibly powerful woman with a brain for computer science. Digging up dirt on her is going to be hard when you're talking about somebody who knows probably a dozen ways to scrub an internet presence.
So you've no proof of someone you haven't met being unpleasant? :unsure:
http://news.yahoo.com/yahoo-reportedly-bidding-least-600-million-hulu-193500190.html
QuoteYahoo reportedly bidding at least $600 million for Hulu
So how much will it take for Yahoo to buy itself a stake in Hulu? According to a new report from AllThingsD, at least $600 million. Citing "numerous sources close to the situation," AllThingsD reports that Yahoo is bidding between $600 million and $800 million for Hulu, a range that reflects the fact that Yahoo "has proposed several different prices based on a variety of circumstances" including "the length of the licensing rights for content and how much control the programming companies selling Hulu have over their media."
Yahoo's bid for Hulu is a sign that the company is still considering ways to counter the enormous video streaming clout that Google now holds with YouTube. Yahoo was interested in buying a majority stake in French video streaming website Dailymotion earlier this year but that deal fell apart after the French government reportedly threatened to block it. In making an official bid for Hulu, Yahoo will be competing with Time Warner Cable, which is considering buying a 33% equity stake in the company.
WTF? I guess she's going for go big or go home.
Well, pretty much the only reason she's CEO of Yahoo is an ego thing. She had so much Google stock that I understand she was worth well over $300m before taking the Yahoo job, at that level of wealth whatever your CEO compensation is that's almost certainly not why you're taking any given job.
I don't read whatever bullshit blogs or retard-Journals that guys like Raz and Dguller read but in the WSJ she's not really gotten flack for anything. She's basically been commended for trying to renegotiate unfavorable deals Yahoo had previously signed and to leverage Yahoo's cash to try and get it into new revenue streams. Right now Yahoo is still a profitable display advertising company but primarily that is based off of visitors to its Yahoo branded sites and its search engine, both of which are slowly dying in popularity. So the only real way to fix that would be to either make Yahoo itself more popular and drive traffic back to it, or use your existing profitability to diversify so the company itself survives the original revenue stream drying up (sort of an "IBM" style evolution.)
She discontinued telecommuting at Yahoo, and for some reason that engendered really huge amounts of hostility in some quarters, but her argument basically was, "I don't think people work well in IT teams as telecommuters." Considering Apple, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft basically don't allow telecommuting for that same reason I'm not 100% sure I buy into it being a bad move. I think the size of the Yahoo telecommuting workforce wasn't big anyway, so it was people making mountains out of molehills. Now, it might make sense when you're just working a bunch of IT contracts like IBM to have a lot of telecommuting IT support drones randomly assigned all over the country but that only really makes sense for IBM (and the drones to a degree.) Pretty much every industry article I've ever read (and the real bad ones branch out into mainstream press), those big contracts where IBM takes over an entire company's IT or an entire State's IT have been almost universally hated by the customer and resulted in horrific degradation of IT services.
I also think Mayer got some flak because she had a child and had a personal nursery set up next to her office and that was seen as an "unfair perk" because other Yahoo employees don't have that. But last I checked CEOs get lots of perks the regular employees do not.
It's kind of a facile truism, but it's still true - in the end she'll be judged on the results during her watch.
Quote from: OttoVonBismarck on May 27, 2013, 09:03:53 PM
I don't read whatever bullshit blogs or retard-Journals that guys like Raz and Dguller read but in the WSJ she's not really gotten flack for anything.
What blogs do I read? Honest question, I didn't realize I read any.
Quote from: garbon on May 27, 2013, 08:23:26 PM
http://news.yahoo.com/yahoo-reportedly-bidding-least-600-million-hulu-193500190.html
QuoteYahoo reportedly bidding at least $600 million for Hulu
So how much will it take for Yahoo to buy itself a stake in Hulu? According to a new report from AllThingsD, at least $600 million. Citing "numerous sources close to the situation," AllThingsD reports that Yahoo is bidding between $600 million and $800 million for Hulu, a range that reflects the fact that Yahoo "has proposed several different prices based on a variety of circumstances" including "the length of the licensing rights for content and how much control the programming companies selling Hulu have over their media."
Yahoo's bid for Hulu is a sign that the company is still considering ways to counter the enormous video streaming clout that Google now holds with YouTube. Yahoo was interested in buying a majority stake in French video streaming website Dailymotion earlier this year but that deal fell apart after the French government reportedly threatened to block it. In making an official bid for Hulu, Yahoo will be competing with Time Warner Cable, which is considering buying a 33% equity stake in the company.
WTF? I guess she's going for go big or go home.
Generally I'm skeptical a strategy of a bunch of big dollar acquisitions, but for Yahoo why not? Unless the strategy is to lose market share to google forever--and I have doubts that is viable in the long term---they need to get people to switch from google to yahoo. I've read the articles their staff writes: I have doubts the brainpower exists in yahoo to do anything organically.
Quote from: alfred russel on May 27, 2013, 09:26:33 PM
I've read the articles their staff writes: I have doubts the brainpower exists in yahoo to do anything organically.
:hmm: That is a damn good point.
Quote from: alfred russel on May 27, 2013, 09:26:33 PM
Generally I'm skeptical a strategy of a bunch of big dollar acquisitions, but for Yahoo why not? Unless the strategy is to lose market share to google forever--and I have doubts that is viable in the long term---they need to get people to switch from google to yahoo. I've read the articles their staff writes: I have doubts the brainpower exists in yahoo to do anything organically.
Unless they radically re-vamp them - I don't see how either of these acquisitions are really going to make them competitive as far as in terms of a "switch from google to yahoo".
What exactly is Yahoo trying to be anyway? I honestly see no point in being a content provider of anything and everything, in the age when you can just Google anything you want.
Quote from: DGuller on May 27, 2013, 09:38:49 PM
What exactly is Yahoo trying to be anyway? I honestly see no point in being a content provider of anything and everything, in the age when you can just Google anything you want.
Presumably they want you to Yahoo! or at least visit one of their content arms (like google with Youtube or Google+ :lol: ).
Quote from: garbon on May 27, 2013, 09:36:25 PM
Quote from: alfred russel on May 27, 2013, 09:26:33 PM
Generally I'm skeptical a strategy of a bunch of big dollar acquisitions, but for Yahoo why not? Unless the strategy is to lose market share to google forever--and I have doubts that is viable in the long term---they need to get people to switch from google to yahoo. I've read the articles their staff writes: I have doubts the brainpower exists in yahoo to do anything organically.
Unless they radically re-vamp them - I don't see how either of these acquisitions are really going to make them competitive as far as in terms of a "switch from google to yahoo".
Yeah, I was going to end my post with the thought that I can't imagine that is realistically going to happen.
Quote from: OttoVonBismarck on May 27, 2013, 09:03:53 PM
I don't think people work well in IT teams as telecommuters." Considering Apple, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft basically don't allow telecommuting for that same reason
How very granola of them.
Quote from: garbon on May 27, 2013, 09:43:58 PM
Presumably they want you to Yahoo! or at least visit one of their content arms (like google with Youtube or Google+ :lol: ).
They've got search traffic, but their monetization is piss-poor. There's pushback on monetizing Tumblr, but it'd be very easy to monetize something like Vimeo for a quick cash infusion.
Quote from: DontSayBanana on May 28, 2013, 11:30:18 AM
Quote from: garbon on May 27, 2013, 09:43:58 PM
Presumably they want you to Yahoo! or at least visit one of their content arms (like google with Youtube or Google+ :lol: ).
They've got search traffic, but their monetization is piss-poor. There's pushback on monetizing Tumblr, but it'd be very easy to monetize something like Vimeo for a quick cash infusion.
Hulu isn't really like vimeo though. As far as I know there isn't any component to hulu for users to upload content.
That said, I just saw that they said with acquisition of playerscale(?) that she's acquired 12 companies in her tenure. Perhaps they are looking to mold together some of the functionalities from the various entities acquired.
Quote from: garbon on May 28, 2013, 11:52:57 AM
Hulu isn't really like vimeo though. As far as I know there isn't any component to hulu for users to upload content.
That said, I just saw that they said with acquisition of playerscale(?) that she's acquired 12 companies in her tenure. Perhaps they are looking to mold together some of the functionalities from the various entities acquired.
Once again, my skills for articulation are terrible. You've got a point; if they have the winning bid, they'll be paying a lot for the "privilege" of negotiating contracts with content producers, but in the basic wiring, Hulu's business closely resembles a cable network- higher-pay direct advertising contracts for commercials, costs coming mostly from obtaining content for the network.
As far as molding some of the functionalities, I wouldn't be surprised. The general feeling is that the conglomerate's back- a company like Google or Apple just can't maintain that kind of scale while specializing in a narrow band of content and services. I'd wager that's not too different from Myer's view, and she's branching Yahoo! out, hoping that enough outlying pontoons will keep the ship afloat.