Yahoo Buys Tumblr; Still Lame

“A tumblelog is a quick and dirty stream of consciousness, a bit like a remaindered links style linklog but with more than just links,” blogging pioneer Jason Kottke wrote in October, 2005. 

Since its inception six years ago, Tumblr has grown into heavyweight micro-blogging platform with 50 billion posts across a 108 million tumblelogs, with nearly two hundred million unique visitors in the last month alone. Many of them are in the highly coveted demographics of teenagers and adults, aged 18-34.This is exactly why the First Lady of the Internet, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer has just confirmed the purchase of the platform for $1 billion.  This is all part of her revitalising strategy for the aging and in-debt brand, including a partnership with E! Online and great looking weather apps.

Tumblr users, however, are worried that their hipster haven could be ruined by being gobbled up by a big, bad corporation. To put their little minds at ease, and in a great publicity stunt, Mayer sought to alleviate their fears with her very own first Tumblr post stating: “We promise not to screw it up."

It’s too early to say whether Yahoo will screw up Tumblr - by making it ugly, by introducing terrible advertising, by obscuring its wealth of adult content, or simply making it uncool by association. It’s also too early to say whether Yahoo have financially screwed up by buying Tumblr as its growth has slowed down recently. What we do know for now is that Yahoo is still the aging aunt of the online family.