Tumblr Monetization: Sell To Yahoo

Image by Matthew Buchanan / Flickr via CrunchBase

You have to be crazy about Tumblr to truly understand its appeal. It is half way there between Blogger/Wordpress and Twitter and, to its hard core users, more fulfilling than both. You can't amass a huge audience and not be able to monetize it. But this sale to Yahoo means monetization can wait some more.

Marissa Mayer failed to buy FourSquare as a Google executive, but she has managed to buy Tumblr as the Yahoo Chief. Both are companies that have helped put New York City on the tech map.

Last I met David Karp was during Social Media Week. This validation is well deserved. Now Karp and team get to nurture the local tech ecosystem some. I am assuming the Tumblr team will stay put in the city. I don't think it wants to wear "f----g Dropbox T-shirts!"

Karp, I have a clean energy idea that I need some seed money for. Are you in? :)

The billion Yahoo paid it will get back in the stock market reward to the Yahoo stock from the cool factor from Tumblr to the Yahoo brand. So basically this web property has been had for free. It is win win. This is also a strong signal to young and happening tech entrepreneurs that Yahoo is a brand that can be trusted with sexy acquisitions. That is worth at least another billion.

Fred Wilson must be very happy. You couldn't get near that guy without him gushing about David Karp at least once. Now you have concrete proof what it was all about.

David Karp showing up at Yahoo is like Arianna Huffington showing up at AOL, only I don't think Karp will outshine Mayer. She is a hotshot herself, very much so.

Yahoo buying Tumblr for $1.1 billion, vows not to screw it up

The deal is expected to increase Yahoo's audience by 50 percent. ..... Shares of Yahoo rose in early trading on Monday but quickly gave up those gains and were little changed at $26.54. Through Friday's close, they had risen 70 percent since Mayer became CEO. ..... David Karp, 26, who founded Tumblr in 2007 and will remain CEO. ...... Karp, a self-taught programmer who left high school in favor of home schooling ..... his take in the billion-dollar sale would top $200 million. .... "There are a lot of rich people in the world. There are very few people who have the privilege of getting to invent things that billions of people use," he said.

Update: I think Karp will buy a plane.

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