I wonder if people are going to flee now. Hopefully Yahoo won’t let Tumblr die like they dig Flickr.
According to the WSJ, the deal could be announced as early as Monday. Tumblr will be allowed to run as an independent business unit.
Why would Yahoo, under the leadership of newly minted CEO Marissa Mayer make such a move? The WSJ speculates that it was to gain a social networking presence. Google+ is now the second most popular social network in the world. Yahoo has had no social networking sites to speak of.
Yahoo’s one previous major social networking play–the purchase of GeoCities in 1999 for approximately $3.5-billion—ended in failure in 2009.
This acquisition had been rumored for several weeks. Reports suggested Mayer would announce the deal on Monday at an event in New York City, and that both companies’ boards are in the final stages of approving the deal. It has also been said that Mayer will be announcing major changes with Yahoo’s photo-sharing site Flickr.
This buyout would easily be Mayer’s biggest move to date. She has been unsuccessful in freeing Yahoo of its search deal with Microsoft and in acquiring online video website Dailymotion.
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Source: Steve J. Vaughan @ ZDnet
