Yahoo! is buying Tumblr for $1.1 billion! On Sunday,
Yahoo!'s board accepted the deal for the microblogging network well-liked with
animated GIF lovers and celebrities like Beyoncé. There are more than 108
million blogs on the social network, and the acquisition is yet another bold
move by Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer, who is attempting to regenerate the Internet
giant and appeal to a younger demographic. The deal, which is even bigger than
Facebook's $1 billion acquisition of Instagram, is expected to be finalized as
soon as Monday. Tumblr's 26-year-old founder David Karp dropped out of high
school at age 15 to work as a programmer.
Yahoo! has been looking at a range of acquisitions since
Mayer took over as chief executive last year and vowed to revive the company,
which has faded in the face of competition from Google.
Founded in 2007 and headquartered in New York, Tumblr
says it has more than 107 million blogs, 50 billion postings in 12 languages
and 175 employees. The website ranking site Alexa lists Tumblr as number 32 in
terms of global reputation.
If the acquisition takes place, it would be the biggest
for Yahoo! under Mayer and come in the wake of other pricey deals for startups,
such as Facebook’s acquisition of the photo app Instagram for stock worth $1
billion at the time.
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