In a press release sent out this morning, Yahoo! confirmed rumors that spread last week that it is indeed purchasing the microblogging and social network Tumblr. At a total of approximately $1.1 billion in cash, the buyout is expected to go through in the second half of this year.
David Karp, Tumblr’s CEO who founded the company in 2007, directly addressed and reassured the ever-growing, and often quick to react, Tumblr community.
Our team isn’t changing. Our roadmap isn’tchanging. And our mission – to empower creators to make their best work and get it in front of the audience they deserve – certainly isn’t changing. But we’re elated to have the support of Yahoo! and their team who share our dream to make the Internet the ultimate creative canvas. Tumblr gets better faster with more resources to draw from.
Yahoo! made its own comments that showed a surprising sense of humor and that it’s on track with Karp’s words to the Tumblr world.
Per the agreement and our promise not to screw it up, Tumblr will be independently operated as a separate business. David Karp will remain CEO. The product, service and brand will continue to be defined and developed separately with the same Tumblr irreverence, wit, and commitment to empower creators.
The reason for the purchase becomes immediately visible when you look at each company’s numbers and platforms. Tumblr sees roughly 120,000 new singups every day with 900 posts per second and over 300 million monthly unique visitors see that shocking number of posts. Yahoo! offers Tumblr the use of its personalization technology to make it easier for bloggers to discover more content in an easier fashion.
Tumblr teems with massive, and passionate, communities that rise up around everything from Doctor Who to liberal or conservative (but mostly liberal) political crusades and a fervent fanbase that follows professionally recognized creators (Anthony Bourdain, Donald Glover, Kat Dennings) as much as it follows more niche creators (webcomics guru David Willis, peer sex educator and YouTube star Laci Green). However, Tumblr also acts as the home to many adults only blogs, added up to about five percent according to Quantcast data. Five percent doesn’t seem like that much until you factor in that it’s five percent of over 108 million blogs currently in existence.
Yahoo! wants to use this new arrangement to grow its own audience, and the two will of course find ways to create an effective advertising stream to take advantage of each company’s new onslaught of visitors.
With this hands-off approach, this acquisition hopefully won’t affect the daily routine of Tumblrs everywhere. If there’s one thing Tumblr bloggers agree on, it’s that you don’t mess with their home.
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