5 challenges Marissa Mayer faces on Tumblr/Yahoo deal
- Preeti Upadhyaya
- Technology Reporter- Silicon Valley Business Journal
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The site gives Yahoo instant access to some 108 million bloggers, most under the age of 25.
But the deal isn't without its share of challenges. Here are Mayer’s five biggest hurdles to overcome:
1: You have tons of young, new users: Now keep them
As soon as the news broke that Yahoo Inc.'s board had approved the $1.1 billion Tumblr acquisition, the social media world warned Mayer not to mess with the blogging platform's unique culture, alienating its tightly knit community of users.
"I can't believe David Karp betrayed us," posted one user on the page after hearing the news.
Another wrote, "I've lost my friends. I've lost my second family. I've lost the place I call home. I've lost tumblr," using the hashtag #Yahoo to tag the post.
Tumblr oozes a cool factor, as Mashable's Christina Warren puts it. To protect that quality, Mayer must allow Tumblr CEO David Karp to continue to lead the site largely autonomously.
Warren points to Facebook's $1 billion acquisition of the photosharing service Instagram as a recent example of a successful integration. When that deal was struck, many people were concerned the social media giant would irreversibly change Instagram for the worse. So far, that hasn't been the case.
Mayer has already said she won’t “screw it up” and will let Tumblr run independently. We also suggest no sudden movements – any fast change could send users running to, oh, say, Medium?
2: Reverse the dip
Tumbler has grown rapidly in recent years—the Wall Street Journal reports that it had nearly 117 million unique visitors in March, up from 58 million a year ago.
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