Tumblr Users Rush To WordPress After Yahoo’s Acquisition

By Mani
Updated on

WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg said over 72,000 blog posts per hour defect from Tumblr after Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) announced its $1.1 billion acquisition of Tumblr.

Tumblr Users Rush To WordPress After Yahoo's Acquisition

In his personal blog on Sunday, Matt Mullenweg indicated that imports from Tumblr have spiked to over 72,000 posts per hour as against the usual 400-600 imports per hour.

Last week, All Things D reported that both Yahoo! Inc. (YHOO) and the social networking site Tumblr were in serious discussion for a possible $1 billion deal.

Yahoo! Inc. (YHOO) and Tumblr’s Agreement

However it has been confirmed today that both Yahoo and Tumblr have reached a definitive agreement for Yahoo to acquire Tumblr.

Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) is expected to announce the further details of the deal during a press conference in New York on Monday evening.

As the news of Yahoo acquiring Tumblr started ticking in last week, angry Tumblr users have started switching to WordPress in droves.

In his Sunday blog, WordPress founder indicated that during a one-hour period on Sunday with the news of the imminent deal between Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) and Tumblr spreading, the import from Tumblr to WordPress skyrocketed to 72,000. This translates into an increase of 12000 percent in exports to WordPress.

However, WordPress founder doesn’t feel there will be exodus from Tumblr and even if a million people leave Tumblr, it would add up to a week’s signups.

Keeping away from such short term aberrations, WordPress founder is keen to understand the broad picture over the next 5 to 10 years. He also indicated in his blog that Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO)’s all-cash deal by some metrics like revenue is expensive.

Mullenweg further wrote in his post that the relationship between WordPress and Tumblr platforms have been quite friendly in the past, with both exports and imports seen from both sides.

In the recent past, Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) has been consistently maintaining that it needs to capture more users from the 18-to-24-year-old-age group.  The social networking site Tumblr would exactly fit the bill for Yahoo. Tumblr permits users to post multimedia and other content to a short-form blog, follow other user’s blogs besides make their blogs private.

The social networking site has a global traffic of 117 million visitors in April, according to comScore, a leading Internet technology company that provides Analytics for a Digital World.

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