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Verizon is buying struggling giant Yahoo for $4.83 billion
After months of gesturing and negotiations, Yahoo has finally found a buyer: Verizon. The mobile operator, which is also the parent company of AOL and Engadget, confirmed today that it will pay $4.83 billion for Yahoo's web business. All of the company's advertising, content, search and mobile operations will be transferred to Verizon and merged with AOL.
AOL chief wants to turn the company into an ad empire
Verizon bought Engadget's parent company AOL for its ad tech, that much we knew. And the man behind that deal was none other than AOL Chief Executive Tim Armstrong, who The Wall Street Journal reports has an eye on building the company into a massive mobile ad empire. By 2020 Armstrong aims for AOL to jump from its current 700 million users to two billion, and generate between $10 billion and $20 billion in revenue. With that, Armstrong says AOL will be the top global media company.
Yahoo asks potential buyers to bid before April 11: WSJ
Despite Marissa Mayer's best efforts, Yahoo is struggling to stay relevant. The company is still worth a lot of money, but most of that can be attributed to its stake in Alibaba, an enormously successful e-commerce firm in China. Now, according to the Wall Street Journal, the ageing technology giant has put itself up for auction. A letter sent to possible buyers, and seen by the broadsheet newspaper, states that Yahoo has asked for preliminary bids by April 11th. These could be for some or all of its business, including Yahoo Japan and web services like Tumblr and Flickr.
Activist investor wants to replace all Yahoo's directors
In many ways, Yahoo is the internet's metaphorical grandparent. We don't visit nearly enough, and we're all avoiding thinking about what might happen to it. Well, it looks like an equally metaphorical rich Aunt is stepping in and taking care of that for us. The WSJ reports that "activist investor" Starboard Value LP is coming good on an earlier threat of getting rid of Yahoo's existing directors, and putting forward nine new ones, of its choosing, in their place.
Yahoo Games is shutting down in May
Yahoo Games, part of many people's early online gaming experience, has been on its deathbed since 2014 when the company started killing old titles. Now, Yahoo has decided on when it plans to lay the old casual gaming portal to rest, a month after it first announced that it's shuttering the website along with other products. On May 13th, 2016, Yahoo Games is going the way of the dodo. Those who want to experience it one last time for nostalgia's sake can still play, but note that it stopped accepting in-game purchases on March 14th.
Yahoo kills most of its digital magazines
Yahoo put a lot of effort into becoming a legit media company these past few years. It didn't only launch several digital magazines that publish content for its front page, it also hired big-time journos, such as NYT's David Pogue. Despite all these, even its media business isn't safe from its ongoing layoffs and quest for transformation. Yahoo media division's global editor-in-chief Martha Nelson has announced on Tumblr that most of its digital magazines, particularly Yahoo Food, Health, Parenting, Makers, Travel, Autos and Real Estate, are shutting down.
Tumblr isn't doing as well as Yahoo expected
Yahoo had high hopes for Tumblr when it bought the blogging platform for $1.1 billion in 2013, but it hasn't lived up to its expectations. The troubled company has lowered its valuation to $760 million, down $230 million from its previous $990 million value (Yahoo only snapped up Tumblr for over a billion due to its liabilities). Marissa Mayer and her colleagues expected the startup to boost its userbase to a billion. While that did eventually happen over a year after the acquisition, the number was called into question, as the company used a new methodology to measure its audience across devices.
Yahoo is laying off 1,700 people and closing five offices
Yahoo can't seem to figure out how to turn itself around. Today it announced a new "aggressive strategic plan" to pare itself down to focus on its strength in its Q4 earnings report. That plan involves laying off 15 percent of its workforce and closing five international offices.
Yahoo faces class action lawsuit over text spamming
Yahoo probably isn't the first company you'd think of as a text spammer, but the courts might soon beg to differ. A judge has ruled that the internet pioneer has to face a class action lawsuit for sending Sprint customers automatic "welcome" messages when someone else pinged them on Yahoo Messenger in 2013. These were effectively small, unwanted sales pitches for Yahoo's services, according to the lawsuit -- and it doesn't help that they sometimes followed spam from another party.
Yahoo shuts down its Screen video streaming hub
Yahoo's woes continue as the company shut down Screen, its video service/hub. If you'll recall Screen played a part in reviving Community after NBC cancelled the show and hosted the first NFL livestream of a regular season game. The site's library also included Saturday Night Live clips and a smattering of original content. Those videos aren't going anywhere, though, as Variety reports that the company plans to put them alongside other content with the same topic in its "digital magazines." For example, the Live Nation music channel is headed to the Yahoo Music portion of the site.
Yahoo reverses its Alibaba spinoff to save on taxes
After a week of debating options that included a possible sale, Yahoo has made a decision about its future... and it's probably not what you expected. The web pioneer is conducting a "reverse spin off" where everything but its Alibaba stake is moving to another company. Supposedly, this lets Yahoo go ahead with its original plan to spin off the Alibaba stake (and thus make investors happy) without the risk of a ton of US taxes. It also provides "more transparency" into how much Yahoo is worth, if you ask company chief Marissa Mayer.
Yahoo reportedly gets serious about selling its core business
Yahoo appears to have more than just a casual interest in selling itself off. Both CNBC and the New York Times claim that the web giant has ruled out spinning out its remaining stake in Alibaba and is instead thinking seriously about a sale, whether it's the company's stake in Yahoo Japan or the entire core business. It will reportedly take "a year or more" to assess everything, but you may not have to wait that long to get some official news -- Yahoo could announce something as early as Wednesday.
WSJ: Yahoo may sell itself off
Yahoo's attempt at turning around its fortunes hasn't gone that well: on top of sagging profits and departing execs, it's still heavily dependent on both its Japanese business as well as its stake in Chinese internet giant Alibaba. And now, it sounds like the company might want to hand over the reins to someone else. Sources for the Wall Street Journal understand that Yahoo is holding a "marathon" number of board meetings where the possibility of selling the company's core business is on the table. It's not certain how serious the web pioneer might be, but private equity firms are reportedly taking a peek.
