Tumblr now officially part of Yahoo; Marissa Mayer promises it will stay separate

Yahoo’s huge $1.1 billion deal to buy popular blogging service Tumblr has now closed, the two companies announced today.

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“As promised, Tumblr will continue to operate as a separate business, led by David Karp as [chief executive officer],” Mayer wrote in a blog post. “Their product road map, their team, and tone will all remain the same as will their mission to empower creators and curators alike to do what they love best: create. David and his team are redefining creative expression online, and we can’t wait to see what they come up with next.”

Yahoo clearly sees Tumblr as a company that can help reinvent Yahoo and change how it is viewed. Tumblr is a major platform for blogging and sharing content on the Web. The service hosts 105 million blogs and has 300 million monthly unique visitors.

At an event a month ago, I asked Mayer how she plans to keep Tumblr’s products from stagnating like Flickr’s did after it was acquired by Yahoo in 2005. She said it comes down to having a new executive team in place and a commitment to keep Tumblr independent.

“When we look at superscale acquisitions like eBay, PayPal, Google, [and] YouTube, a meme arises,” Mayer said at the time. “Those companies have so much momentum, and they often do better when operated independently. Learning from that history is why we made the commitment to operate Tumblr independently.”

Yahoo and Mayer, in true Tumblr form, also posted this GIF to announce the close of the deal:

Marissa Mayer photo via Sean Ludwig/VentureBeat