Blogs | NIALL KITSON:
Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer (pictured) must be getting used to impossible goals by now. First taking the top job at a company regarded by many - including Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer - as a basket case, Mayer has overseen a wave of acqui-hires in search (Milewise), productivity (Astrid), social (Jybe, Alike), gaming (Loki Studios), mobile (Summly), and has now spent $1 billion on hipster-friendly blogging platform Tumblr.
While Yahoo's recent purchases were about gathering engineering and design talent, Tumblr is different, mostly because it has a big enough cultural impact that people would notice if something goes badly wrong with it. That Mayer promised in a blog post to "not to screw it up" showed she understands the scepticism and the casual nature of the service - no warbling about ‘maintaining the essence of Tumblr' just a straight, casual assurance that everything will be fine.
Are users convinced? The short answer is 'mostly'. According to Wordpress founder and Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg, after rumours of the takeover gained momentum, content was being exported from Tumblr to the Wordpress platform at a rate of 72,000 posts in one hour (the usual rat...
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