Search engine Yahoo Inc. (NADAQ: YHOO) announced today that it has completed negotiations to acquire blogging site Tumblr Inc. for $1.1 billion.
The deal, which is expected to grow Yahoo’s online audience to more than one billion monthly visitors, is also seen in the industry as the boldest move yet by Marissa Mayer since she left Google Inc. to take the position of CEO at Yahoo last year.
“We are beyond excited to partner with Marissa and the wonderful team at Yahoo that we’ve already come to know well,” said Karp. “Their support and belief in our vision gives us an opportunity to be the most ambitious we’ve ever been.”
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The brief Yahoo statement said that Tumblr will be independently operated and that product, service and brand “will continue to be defined and developed separately by the Tumblr team.
Karp will also remain as CEO of the company.
“I’m delighted to announce we’ve reached an agreement to acquire Tumblr,” Mayer wrote in an earlier blog. “We promise not to screw it up.”
She said Tumblr can deploy Yahoo’s personalization technology and search infrastructure “to help its users discover creators, bloggers and content they’ll love.”
Tumblr, in turn will bring “50 billion blog posts (and 75 million more arriving each day) to Yahoo’s media network and search experiences,” she said.
Mayer joined Google in 1999 as its first female engineer. She worked for 13 years with the company, holding key roles in initiatives such as Google Search, Google Images, Google Books and Gmail. She left the company for rival search engine Yahoo in July 2012
Early this year she outlined Yahoo’s plans to acquire a number of technology companies. However, she generated industry buzz in other areas as well.
For instance, much was written about her recent decision to bring Yahoo in line with companies such as Google and Facebook by extending the company’s maternity and paternity leaves and providing new parents with $500 to spend on baby items and other services.
She also received a lot of flak this year for forbidding Yahoo workers from telecommuting.
