Anyone fooling themselves and thinking "It'll be different this time," is in for disappointment. Of course Tumblr is the next Geocities. Yahoo is a public company that won't tolerate the freedom that Tumblr offers.
I think it boils down how Yahoo manages to integrate it into its portfolio. I really hope they succeed somehow. Internet could use some more competition.
I'm really hoping Yahoo the best. Although they have no products, that I'm aware of at least, that I'm using, I have used Tumblr briefly. Like some others here, when I heard Mayer was appointed as CEO from Google.<p>I thought that was awesome for the company, and even though some of the devs didn't like the HR changes, it does show her commitment to change that is badly needed.<p>What I will give Yahoo the biggest credit they deserve is that THEY ARE making headlines and becoming a common topic of discussion. I just really hope that Yahoo does cultivate Tumblr (even though I think the acquisition is over priced to make headlines) and carve a strong niche as a bloggers goto solution, and that the users don't start a mass exodus.
No Boo.com reference? [1]<p>The OP has a lot of knowledge about the dot-com bust, and is a smart dude. It's unsurprising he sees it through this lens, though I don't quite see it the same way. Marissa Mayer has a better sense for product (from my POV) than Jerry Yang / whoever was running Yahoo in 1999.<p>That said, it's still interesting to hear how the dot-com survivors view the current crop of net companies.<p>[1]: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boo.com" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boo.com</a>
Yahoo is like HP. They once had pretty great engineering and relevance, but they are a zombie company now. If I were a Yahoo shareholder, I'd be pretty pissed about this deal.