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Parallels in Internet history

April 1999: Yahoo! buys GeoCities.

"A $3.6 billion deal that will further solidify Yahoo!'s position as a frontrunner in the online popularity contest. ...

"GeoCities (GCTY) is the third most visited site on the Web behind AOL and Yahoo!, with 19 million unique visitors in December, according to Web research company Media Metrix.

"GeoCities sets up communities of people who share similar interests and allows customers to create their own home page on the Internet.

"A deal would likely propel Yahoo! to the top rated site in terms of traffic, but it's not clear how much the two sites' individual audience overlap. ...

"Through GeoCities, Yahoo! will be able to distribute a range of editing tools and content published through personal homepages in an array of services. ..."

May 2013: Will Yahoo Try to Get Its "Cool Again" by Doing a Deal for Tumblr?

"CFO Ken Goldman ... said Yahoo needed to be 'cool again.' ...

"Tumblr ... focuses heavily on user-generated content, largely text and photos, although there is an increasing use of video on the site. ...

"Any kind of deal with Tumblr could certainly bring Yahoo a big, young audience. Its worldwide traffic was at 117 million visitors in April, according to comScore. On its home page, Tumblr claims it has 107.8 million blogs and 50.6 billion posts."

At the time of its acquisition, GeoCities posted a net loss for the year of $19.8 million alongside a $2.3 billion pre-Yahoo market cap. Tumblr generated $13 million in revenue last year and has a reported valuation of $800 million.

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The Ideapad debuted on November 1, 1998 and has been through numerous incarnations through the years. It is now a weblog and personal journal.
Once upon a time I wrote Usability: The Site Speaks for Itself (Publisher's page / Amazon.com)
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