Yahoo is pumping in $1.1 billion in cash for Tumblr to attract a younger, hipper and cooler audience for the company.
Speaking at the J.P Morgan Global Technology conference, Yahoo’s CFO Ken Goldman said, “We’re working hard to attract a younger audience”.
Tumblr is the “in thing” right now, with over 100 million visitors per month, 100 million blogs, more than 90 million posts per day and over 50 billion posts. And since it’s a social network, where users can follow other blogs, and can post their blogs to their Twitter and Facebook accounts, it could be the perfect opportunity for Yahoo, which lacks a social network.
Tumblr would fit perfectly into Yahoo’s complete focus on winning in mobile. According to Derek Gottfred, Tumblr’s vice president, the company’s mobile usage has quadrupled over the past six months and is nearby equal to Web usage.
Whether Tumblr would be a success story for Yahoo or not, that remains to be seen.