Yahoo is about to end Tumblr’s independence for the sake of profit

Yahoo is planning an internal reshuffle that could effectively end the independence of its most popular acquisition, the visual blogging platform Tumblr. The Information reports that CEO Marissa Mayer spoke about the major changes inside the company at an offsite meeting with executives. She also reportedly asked Tumblr CEO David Karp which Yahoo executive he’d like to report to from now on. Yahoo spent $1.1 billion to acquire Tumblr in May 2013, and it looks like the company is finally planning to seek a return on that investment. Tumblr’s highly visual format makes it possible to serve native ads—that is, ads that are barely distinguishable from the content around them, and thus less intrusive to users. Once ad-free, Tumblr immediately began serving ads after the Yahoo acquisition. These days, your typical Tumblr user can expect to see a sponsored post every ten posts or so while scrolling through their dashboard. Beyond that, however, Tumblr users haven’t seen much Yahoo interference. Tumblr has operated mostly independently since the acquisition.