Yahoo and Tumblr's secret plan: digging up YouTube stars

Yahoo in the spring of 2013 1.1 billion U.S. dollars to buy the famous light blog site Tumblr, Yahoo many products and media executives immediately to the CEO Marissa (Marissa Mayer), put forward how many Yahoo should use Tumblr detailed plan. But they were all denied by Mayer.

In an effort to persuade Tumblr's founder and CEO David Kap to sell Tumblr to Yahoo, Ms. Mayer promised carp that Tumblr would remain independent, as YouTube and its parent company, Google (Weibo), Instagram's relationship with the parent company Facebook. A source familiar with Ms. Mayer said Ms. Mayer resolutely prevented Tumblr from turning into a "shiny new toy" that Yahoo executives were playing with.

In the months that followed, Mayer decided that Tumblr could take advantage of Yahoo's sales force and advertising technology, and that Yahoo would use Tumblr's publishing tools to provide more support for its media brands. At this stage, carp will not be further integrated into Yahoo. But at the end of last autumn and the spring of this year, Mayer's stance began to soften.

Ms. Mayer and her team now have a bigger vision for Tumblr's relationship with Yahoo, but unlike the original idea of Karp. Yahoo executives believe Tumblr should be a tool for Yahoo to respond to Google YouTube, according to several sources. As expected, Tumblr will be the exclusive distributor of YouTube-like star videos, including JC Caylen, Jennxpenn, Teala Dunn, Ricky Dillon, Connor Franta, Jackjack and Bethany Mota.

YouTube stars become the object of young people's pursuit

At the end of March 2014, Re/code, a technology website, reported that Yahoo was making plans to attract the most popular stars and networks on YouTube to turn to Yahoo. The plan aims to use persistent complaints from video creators and owners that they do not receive enough compensation on YouTube. Yahoo executives told video creators and owners that the company could offer them better economic returns than on YouTube, including by raising advertising revenues or guaranteeing video advertising rates.

But Re/code did not mention where the video of the former YouTube star would be placed. Many speculate that Yahoo might put the videos on the screen of Yahoo's branded video products. But 3 of sources have confirmed that Yahoo may be opening new channels for YouTube stars to Tumblr.

One source said Yahoo's idea was simple. They think poaching YouTube stars is a good strategy, and Tumblr will be their obvious choice as long as they see user-generated content networks. It makes sense to do so. Mike Kerns, senior vice president for home and vertical products at Yahoo, has led the team to turn screen into an outstanding product that is easy to use and Mack Cornes. But children and teenagers who like Ricky Dillon barely heard of it, but they know Tumblr.

Other reasons why executives like Tumblr are "socially strong". Tumblr has a dashboard that resembles the Facebook News feed, and as long as subscribers subscribe to YouTube, users have become "followers" of Tumblr blogs. Videos and other Tumblr posts can be forwarded quickly across the platform.

That is to say, Mayer's original plan has been changed. In fact, the idea of using Tumblr against YouTube has been around for a long time and continues to improve, but its execution is slower than many expected. One reason is that YouTube stars feel happier on YouTube than ever before. In February, Google executive Susan Vosiki (Susan Wojcicki) replaced Salar Kamanga (Salar Kamangar) as YouTube's new CEO.

Wojcicki's first proposal was to fix the relationship between the company and its local company star. She started a listening tour and launched a marketing campaign for YouTube stars on commercial television, in the advertising section and in the subway. Wojcicki's most effective move is to stop spending YouTube's vast sums of money on the original content of celebrities such as Madonna and Jay Z, but to provide more support to local stars. We've heard that many young YouTube stars have even turned down invitations to cable channels, which is very unusual.

For whatever reason, Yahoo has been brewing a big plan for YouTube over the past few months. It was reported that Yahoo had postponed the plan in the early summer. The CEO of a digital media company that designed the Tumblr channel for Yahoo said he liked the idea, but Yahoo seemed to give it up.

There are rumors that Yahoo has postponed the plan because Tumblr CEO Karp lacks enthusiasm. But those familiar with the carp say that is not the biggest cause, and that Yahoo and Tumblr are trying to attract YouTube stars, but these actions are still in their infancy. Yahoo soon felt much more pressure to start speeding up the process.

So far, Tumblr mergers and acquisitions have yet to add to Yahoo's revenue. In Yahoo's quarterly earnings, Tumblr was barely mentioned. October 2, "Fortune" magazine author Miguel Huft (Miguel helft) had "Yahoo acquisition tumblr total failure?" "For the topic published analysis article.

At the end of September, Jeff Smith, a radical investor, sent an open letter to Ms. Mayer criticizing her for wasting 1.3 billion of billions of dollars on acquisitions that failed to generate revenue since 2012. Mr. Smith says Yahoo is best sold to AOL, better than Mayer's continued operation. He wrote: "Ms. Mayer's 1.3 billion dollar acquisition apparently failed to bring any benefits to shareholders." Many of the companies that have been bought are still losing substantial sums of money, and even on the basis of business convergence, these acquisitions have failed to bring any substantial revenue growth to the company. ”

If Tumblr can make a small contribution to Yahoo's 3.5 billion dollar gross income, or bring 1.5 billion of billions of dollars of net revenue to Google in 2013, like YouTube, shareholders like Mr Smith could remain on their own. Yahoo and Tumblr spokesmen are not yet responding.

(Responsible editor: Lvguang)