Yahoo: Marissa Mayer eyeing Tumblr for possible $1 billion acquisition
In a deal that would vault Yahoo into the premiere league of social media, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer is said to be closing in on a $1 billion acquisition deal with David Karp, the CEO of New York-based Tumblr.
Details of the talks leaked out earlier Thursday via AllThingsD, a site which prides itself on its Yahoo sources in particular. A later report in AdWeek, via its own sources, cited $1 billion as the figure currently under discussion. Coincidentally, that is said to be the valuation Tumblr was going to get at its next funding round.
Both sites were cautious to emphasize that the talks could come to naught. Mayer is clearly interested; she's known and admired Karp's New York-based site for years. Tumblr and its 107 million microblogs would add another 15 billion pageviews a month to Mayer's hoard. Most important of all, it could make Yahoo look cool again.
