After rumours spread during the weekend, it’s now official: Yahoo is buying Tumblr. Yahoo has announced the takeover, aptly enough, on Tumblr, explaining that it “promises not to screw it up”.
That’s a reference, obviously, to the complete mess it’s made of pretty much every other company it has ever bought. In that Tumblr post it explains:
Tumblr is incredibly special and has a great thing going. We will operate Tumblr independently. David Karp will remain CEO. The product roadmap, their team, their wit and irreverence will all remain the same as will their mission to empower creators to make their best work and get it in front of the audience they deserve.
It is at least reassuring to hear that Marissa Mayer is at least mindful of the fact that Tumblr is already a Good Thing that doesn’t perhaps need interfering with too much. More comforting for the legions of Tumblr users will be David Karp’s own announcement, in which he reassures everyone that the site “isn’t turning purple”. He continues:
Our headquarters isn’t moving. Our team isn’t changing. Our roadmap isn’t changing. And our mission — to empower creators to make their best work and get it in front of the audience they deserve — certainly isn’t changing.
So what can we expect from the takeover? Well, both parties seem fairly certain that it will be more of the same, only better. In Karp’s words, “simply, Tumblr gets better faster”. Mayer is a little more wordy and corporate:
Tumblr can deploy Yahoo!’s personalization technology and search infrastructure to help its users discover creators, bloggers, and content they’ll love… The two companies will also work together to create advertising opportunities that are seamless and enhance user experience.
Blah, blah, blah. We can, of course, also expect David Karp to become filthy, filthy rich. Blah, blah, blah. We’ll learn more in an announcement call today.