Yahoo CEO Mayer was dubbed "Shopaholic" by the media

Absrtact: Successive mergers and acquisitions, Yahoo CEO Mayer was dubbed a shopaholic by the media Yahoo has long been not because of a huge acquisition on the front page of the media coverage, this is not a bad thing. But just announced 1.1 billion dollars to buy light blog Tumblr after the Yahoo proposed 6.8 billion

Yahoo CEO Mayer is dubbed "Shopaholic" by the media

Yahoo has been a long time since the huge acquisition of the media coverage of the front page, which is not a bad thing. But just announced 1.1 billion dollars to buy light blog Tumblr after the announcement of the Yahoo proposed 6.8 billion U.S. dollar bid for the video site Hulu News. Even Google and Microsoft are rare, and Yahoo is planning to buy a future?

Before Mayer (Marrisa Meyer) came to Yahoo from Google, the company caused media attention to the endless negative news. Frequent change of CEO, the center of gravity constantly swinging; selling rumors, institutional shareholders forced palace, no improvement in performance, streamlining the Department of staff; ten years ago, Yahoo, the most beautiful internet giant in Silicon Valley, is now left with a lethargic image and staff morale has been low.

After several successive CEOs have disgraced their jobs, Yahoo desperately needs a star CEO to boost the image of the company, some of the wasted of Google's beautiful high Thommeye become the best candidate. Since last June announced a job-hopping Yahoo, Meyer has been in Yahoo for more than 300 days of the chief. Her commitment to change and bold takeover has revitalized Yahoo, but it has also buried a hidden danger for Yahoo.

Meyer's timing is right: under the leadership of the former CEO, Yahoo's business has begun to reverse; more importantly, Yahoo and Alibaba reached an agreement, Ali spent 7.6 billion of dollars to buy back the Yahoo held Ali 21% of the shares. The huge sums of money to Meyer rebuilt Yahoo brought much-needed funds (after more than 4 billion U.S. dollars), and Meyer took office at the beginning is not afraid to offend shareholders, resolutely decided to cancel the dividend plan, retain the funds for acquisitions and other strategic uses.

In the acquisition of this aspect, Meyer is also a small celebrity. During Google's tenure, although not Google's strategic investment in charge, but Meyer has been actively promoting the purchase of Digg and comment on the site Yelp, and ultimately contributed to Google's acquisition of restaurant reviews site Zagat. At the helm of Yahoo and holding funds, Meyer can finally let go carry out her acquisition plan. So, less than a year after Meyer took office, Yahoo has bought 10 companies, and the 1.1 billion dollar acquisition Tumblr makes Yahoo as the entire Silicon Valley and Wall Street focus.

Yahoo, a recent acquisition, is a light blog site Tumblr

More than 1 billion dollars in strategic acquisitions, the last time Yahoo was so heroic is already ten years ago. It was the 2003 Yahoo spent 1.6 billion dollars to buy search engine Company Overture, the intention in the search market and Google a showdown. But the deal seemed reasonable: at the time Overture was Google's main competitor and had an annual revenue of close to $700 million trillion, compared with Tumblr's last year's revenue of just 12 million dollars, which was valued at $1.1 billion trillion.

In fact, Yahoo is a real sucker for acquisitions, and their history of blood and tears can be a classic takeover failure of business schools. In 1999, when the dotcom bubble soared, Yahoo spent 3.6 billion of dollars and 5.7 billion of dollars to buy the website hosting business geocities and online video website broadcast.com, but a total of 9.3 billion dollars bought two businesses finally lost the end.

In addition to these two can be included in the "History of the most failed" deal, Yahoo bought other businesses also appear to be "black hole" swallowed the light. The image community Flickr, social bookmarking delicious, social calendar upcoming.org, all under Yahoo Management lost the original vigor, and finally by competitors completely beyond. Meyer can change Yahoo's "acquisition of Black hole" notoriety, so that the acquisition of Tumblr 1.1 billion dollars no longer wasted?

Tumblr can provide the young user group that Yahoo does not have, but the light blog itself attribute is not suitable for Yahoo's advertisement demand, if Yahoo wants to expand advertisement platform through Tumblr, Meyer may risk losing a large number of users, let Tumblr give way to WordPress again. But if not advertising, Yahoo's financial resources can not continue to support the Tumblr of burning money needs, Tumblr must sacrifice the user experience in exchange for revenue to support themselves. Many people in the industry are not optimistic about the deal, but Meyer believed her judgment, bent forward.

So Meyer in the acquisition of Tumblr must emphasize: this time we will not screw up. "I'm not sure there will be a next takeover," she said in a later interview with CNBC. " But Mayer launched an offensive against Hulu less than one weeks ago. Why would she be so impatient to open the checkbook again? Because Hulu is an important part of Meyer's big strategy for rebuilding Yahoo, Mayer hopes to buy Yahoo for the future.

Yahoo has been puzzled for years: Is this a media company or a technology company? Previous CEOs have been swinging around, and Yahoo's business is constantly being tweaked. Meyer's position on Yahoo is to be an Internet service provider. Yahoo's most important asset today is content. Revision of the portal, adjust the mailbox, upgrade Flickr, the launch of Yahoo Weather; from the move after Meyer took office, she has been trying to strengthen the content of Yahoo's strength.

It seems that the main breakthrough point of Meyer is to strengthen existing assets resources and find feasible acquisition targets. In fact, Tumblr is already the 11th company that Meyer has bought. Look at Meyer's acquisition record: social-sharing applications stamped, video chat platform on the Air, content sharing tools snip.it, mobile referral engine Alik and Jybe, news content streamlining tools Summly, social task management platform Astrid, Tourism incentive Tools Milewise, in addition to recruiting talent, mobile and video has always been Meyer's focus area.

More recently, Yahoo is proposing a 6.8 billion dollar bid for the video site Hulu

As a female leader, Meyer has a manly courage. Within two months, Yahoo has made a series of large-scale acquisitions. Last month, Yahoo spent 30 million dollars to buy news tool Summly, and soon integrated into its own news service. In the same one months, Yahoo also acquired a cross-platform gaming company Playerscale, although the amount of the acquisition is not announced, but given that Playerscale currently has 150 million users, the acquisition costs should not be too small. Last month, Yahoo's plans to buy 200 million of dollars to purchase video site Dailymotion's plan was unexpectedly rejected, let Meyer's plan frustrated.

Plus this month's Tumblr and Hulu, Meyer through the acquisition in exchange for Yahoo future layout of the determination should not be underestimated. For Yahoo, the acquisition of Hulu can greatly enhance the power of the video business, adding important chips to their core advertising business. Yahoo Video currently has 45 million independent user visits per month, although only one-third of YouTube, but if you add Hulu's 24 million, Yahoo Video can be at least as much as Facebook's 63 million roughly equivalent.

In terms of asset quality, Hulu is even more robust than Tumblr. Hulu, which has not only a content provider's mandate but also a 4 million-paying user, has a revenue of $670 million last year; only two years ago the valuations amounted to $2 billion trillion. The problem with the video site is that "three monks have no water to drink", it is News Corp, Comcast, Disney three major shareholders long-standing differences, only to cause Hulu into internal chaos. Selling to a company is the best solution.

If the bid for Hulu succeeds, Yahoo's web content assets will add weight, making it a pivotal force in the US video web site, directly into the first camp of YouTube, Netflix and Amazon. Plus Yahoo's own advantages of the portal assets, mailbox users and Flickr pictures, and just won the light blog Tumblr, Meyer's new Yahoo has at least a solid user base, can further promote her advertising campaign to enhance Yahoo's revenue capabilities.

But there is also a crisis behind the big acquisitions, and consolidation is the biggest problem. Whether Meyer can change Yahoo's "black hole" is still unknown. Many of the assets entered Yahoo's own company because of the lack of high-level attention and resources to support, and thus gradually fall into decline. Meyer can change the high culture, but Yahoo lack of financial resources caused by the revenue pressure, but Meyer cannot change the fact. After the revamped Flickr provides 1TB of space, but the free user upload volume is still only 200MB, which makes 1TB of space has become a complete chicken, due to insufficient funds must be realized revenue, Yahoo still has not the courage to introduce the immediate interests and long-term subversive network services.

Yahoo is not a giant like Google and Microsoft, and even with a sharp turnaround in earnings, they have a quarterly profit of just 2.3 billion dollars. With $1.1 billion trillion in cash acquisitions Tumblr has already cost Yahoo One-fourth of its cash reserves, it may be hard for Yahoo to spend more than a period of time making strategic moves unless they continue to sell the remaining Ali shares if they buy Hulu for more than $6.8 billion.

Meyer took office after the continuous adjustment and heavy acquisition, for many years lifeless Yahoo injected a needle strong heart needle. If her acquisitions are effective, it will greatly enhance Yahoo's competitiveness in the future of mobile internet and content services. But at the same time, Yahoo is not much of the money is also Meyer's heroic acquisition almost exhausted, if there is another acquisition failure, perhaps Meyer can no longer have the ability to go back.