New Delhi: Not only Yahoo confirmed the acquisition of Tumblr, but the company also revamped its photo-sharing service Flickr on Monday - thereby offering its users 1 terabyte online storage for free. During the Flick press event on Monday, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer was asked about the restricted content on Tumblr and she unhesitatingly responded that the company has no plans to restrict controversial material, which means that Tumblr's porn content is safe.
"I think the richness and breadth of content available on Tumblr - even though it may not be as brand safe as what's on our site - is what's really exciting and allows us to reach even more users," The Huffington Post quoted Mayer as saying.
After falling woefully out of fashion, Yahoo wants to be cool again while catering to the capitalistic demands of its shareholders. That goal led CEO Marissa Mayer to make a $1.1 billion bet on online blogging forum Tumblr in a risky acquisition that revolves around the vision and instincts of a 26-year-old entrepreneur who dropped out of high school to pursue his dream of bringing more beauty and creativity to the Internet.
The deal announced Monday is Mayer's boldest move since she left Google 10 months ago to lead Yahoo's latest comeback attempt. It marks Yahoo's most expensive acquisition since it bought online search engine Overture a decade ago for $1.3 billion.
While hailing Tumblr as a fount of creativity that attracts 300 million visitors each month, Mayer told analysts Monday that she is "making a sincere promise to not screw it up." Yahoo said its founder, David Karp, will remain in charge and will keep Tumblr's headquarters in New York to retain the same "irreverence, wit and commitment to empower creators."
Tumblr's audience, which boasts a large concentration of teens and people in their early 20s, is already fretting that the service is going to become more stodgy and commercial under the ownership of an 18-year-old company that seems ancient by Internet standards.
Founded in 2007, Tumblr emerged as a trendy online hangout by providing a blogging service that makes it easy to share posts, photos, video and other content in an enthralling mosaic of interlocking information. Tumblr forums are devoted to such diverse topics as art, architecture, food, politics, pets and fashion.
Although there are several competing services for people to blog, Tumblr makes it easy to create, discover and share content. Tumblr users rely on a dashboard to pinpoint the kinds of blogs that they want to track. Tools help users pass along posts that interest them.
The service says it has amassed more than 50 billion posts from 108 million blogs, with some 75 million new posts every day. More than half of Tumblr's users connect through its mobile app and engage in an average of seven visits per day.
Mayer is confident she can balance the needs of Tumblr's users and Yahoo's investors.
(With inputs from Associated Press)
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