Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
If you are fresh, hip and in demand you can really cash in when it comes to the world of technology … even if you are not motivated by money.
Yahoo will buy blogging service Tumblr for $1.1 billion cash, giving the internet pioneer a much-needed social media platform to reach a younger generation of users and breathe new life into its brand.
The deal will make Tumblr founder and CEO David Karp, 26, a multi-millionaire. Tumblr is one of the web’s most popular hubs of so-called user-generated content, drawing young people who use the platform to post pictures and messages.
It has more than 100 million blogs in its network, ranging from ‘White Men Wearing Google Glass’ – a collection of photos poking fun at the early adopters of the wearable computing devices – to housing-focused ‘The Worst Room’.
One area where Yahoo plans to vamp up advertising is Tumblr’s dashboard, the main landing point, akin to a newsfeed. Dealing with that and other issues may fall to Karp, who founded Tumblr in 2007 and will remain CEO.
Karp is a self-taught programmer who left secondary school in favour of home schooling. Media reports have suggested his take in the sale of Tumblr will top $200 million.
In a 2012 interview, Karp seemed to be less interested in money than in Tumblr’s prominence. “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.
The combination of Yahoo and Tumblr creates an online powerhouse with roughly one billion users, which will draw in more advertisers and help Yahoo keep visitors on its properties for longer periods of time.
The deal is expected to increase Yahoo’s audience by 50 per cent.
