Yahoo's Tumblr Buy Fails Four Tests Of A Successful Acquisition | Hacker News Reader

Yahoo's Tumblr Buy Fails Four Tests Of A Successful Acquisition

forbes.com

33 pointssheri13 comments

Sometimes I wonder if both sides of such analyses are written out beforehand (for/against). Then, if the prevailing sentiment is for the event, they publish the against version; and vice versa. Just to offer a 'counter opinion" and garner pageviews. It reminds me of the obits that NYT has in its database of all famous people alive today; when s/he croaks, they just pull up the latest version and publish.

I did a google search to see if anyone jumped the gun on "for" but I think any action by Yahoo is universally panned. "why yahoo tumblr buy will succeed" produced such gems as:

"If Yahoo Buys Tumblr, What Will It Do With All That Porn ..."

"5 reasons why Yahoo will ruin Tumblr..."

"Yahoo's Reported Tumblr Acquisition Won't Be Easy"

"Why Marissa Mayer Will Fail At Yahoo " ...

Forbes are a huge source of clickbait. Writers are paid on a Gawker-like basis, so we get contrarianism, #slatepitches, and coarse statements in spades.

This is not a good analysis. Tumblr has a demographic access that yahoo doesn't. Yahoo can generate ad revenues due to scale that Tumblr couldn't. Karp adds a perspective that Yahoo needs.

It's unclear whether the acquisition will be a success, but if it is a success the article's reasons will be irrelevant. If it isn't a success, those will not be the reasons why it failed.

So what you are saying is that Tumblr will allow Yahoo to lose money on its target demographic faster than Yahoo could lose by itself?

I'm not sure that the demographic or the site is money losing over the long term, like youtube.

This analysis is pretty useless. Where do these metrics come from? Yahoo long ago ceded the search crown to Google and don't seem to be focused on reclaiming it. The assertion that Yahoo can't integrate Tumblr is baseless considering how new the exec team is.

YouTube wouldn't have scored much better on a report like this.

I don't think the deal will ultimately end up having a YouTube like effect for Yahoo, but this is nothing more than a linkbait puff piece.

> Yahoo long ago ceded the search crown to Google and don't seem to be focused on reclaiming it.

This acquisition seems to support that idea.

I've taken a quick look but I can't seem to find a good response: what kind of "interactive campaigns" or "interactive advertising" does tumblr sell at the moment?

"Tumblr finally started rolling out ad products in 2012, starting with Highlighted Posts in February, which function like promoted posts on Twitter and Facebook. In the following months, the company rolled out several additional features, including a Pinned Posts, Radar and a premium analytics tool for brands and marketers that costs $500 per month."

http://mashable.com/2013/01/02/tumblr-revenue-13-million/

Saving this so I can re-post it in 2 years to show how wrong this was.

These four points illustrate the fact that making a large acquisition to try to transform/redeem yourself has not worked well in the past. Think AOL and Time Warner or HP buying autonomy.

"Tumblr’s industry of interactive advertising is less profitable than Yahoo’s display advertising industry."

Banner ads are the future, you guys! Forbes said it first!

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