Yahoo buys out Tumblr to keep up with the competition

By Ana Martinez |Staff Writer|

Yahoo recently purchased Tumblr, the free micro blogging website, for an estimated $1.1 billion in hopes to revamp their company.

According to The New York Times, Yahoo was interested in the social networking site so that it could, “Reposition itself [in] the technology industry.”

Yahoo now joins other Internet companies that have recently bought or developed social networking sites, such as Facebook and Google.

“Yahoo has lost market share to the likes of Google and Facebook,” reports The New York Times.

No changes or plans have been announced about the recent ownership change.

While they are not looking to acquire more users, it is estimated they have over 700 million.

Their goal is to give Yahoo a better look in the changing social media industry.

Tumbler was founded six years ago and has over 109.9 million blogs, 51.2 billion post and 177 employees.

According to Tumblr they offer many features for its users, “Post text, photos, quotes, links, music, and videos from your browser, phone, desktop, email or wherever you happen to be and customize everything, from colors to your theme’s HTML.”

Although, the popular site has caught the attention of many, it has yet to prove that it can be a profitable business.

“The blogging site burned through an estimated $25 million in cash just last year, and struggled to raise additional money at an acceptable valuation,” reports The New York Times.

Internet sites, like Yahoo, are under constant pressure to keep up with growing competition from social media networks.

“Even Facebook faces constant pressure from investors to show it can increase its profit and adapt to the mobile world,” said The New York Times.

Tumblr has yet to put forward a plan, if any, of advertisement and campaigning to help raise money for the site.

According to The New York Times, last year Tumblr set a goal to raise $100 million but was only able to raise $13 million.

“Despite its ranking as the 24th most viewed website on the internet,” according to Quantcast, “Tumblr has yet to translate that into success on mobile devices, something Yahoo needs,” reported the New York Times.

Students at CSUSB shared their opinion on Yahoo’s recent Tumblr purchase.

“I don’t use Tumblr or Yahoo on a regular basis, if my phone search engine changes to Yahoo I change it back to Google,” said Aunjolay Lambert.

“Seems like Yahoo is falling behind, so this is a way for them to catch up with the rest of the social media world,” said Roman Lopez.

The purchase of Tumblr by Yahoo is the largest social media purchase in recent years.