Yahoo

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Yahoo Inc., fresh off its $1.1-billion deal this week to acquire personal blogging site Tumblr, got in line Friday to pick up video streaming site Hulu. The late bid by the cash-rich Internet portal giant came on the same day that the Santa Monica company received bids from private equity firms KKR & Co. and Silver Lake Management, said people familiar with the matter. For its bid, Silver Lake teamed up with powerful Hollywood talent agency William Morris Endeavor, said the people, who did not want to be named because the bidding process was confidential.

This morning, 2,000 Yahoo employees will get word they're being laid off. The layoffs “are an important next step toward a bold, new Yahoo - smaller, nimbler, more profitable and better equipped to innovate as fast as our customers and our industry require,”  Yahoo Chief Executive Scott Thompson said in a statement. The cuts at the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company to its 14,100 workforce represents about a 14% reduction that the company estimates will save about $375 million annually after being completed later this year.

When Google went public in 2004 for $85 a share, I wrote a column questioning such a high valuation for a company built on a math equation. Wasn't it inevitable that someone would come along with a better search algorithm? Google closed Monday at $908.53 a share. So take what I'm about to say with a pinch of cyber-salt. Yahoo is paying $1.1 billion for the blogging service Tumblr, which enjoys a loyal following among millions of young, cool, edgy and influential users, but little, if any, profit.

Yahoo's latest financial results show the Internet company is still losing ground in the battle for online advertising. The fourth-quarter breakdown announced Tuesday is the latest in a succession of ho-hum performances. Yahoo Inc. recently hired former PayPal executive Scott Thompson as CEO in its latest attempt at a turnaround. The company earned $296 million, or 24 cents per share, in the October-to-December period. That is down 5 percent from $312 million, or 24 cents per share, a year earlier.

Yahoo confirmed 400,000 user names from one of its services were hacked Thursday. The company said that although the breached accounts include user names from Yahoo and other companies, only 5% of the accounts had valid passwords. Yahoo said it is working to fix the vulnerability and is changing the passwords of the affected users. The company also said it is notifying other companies whose users may have been affected -- earlier we reported that they may include people who use AOL, Gmail, Hotmail and many others.

Yahoo Inc.'s discussions to sell its stake in Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and its Japanese operations have reached an impasse, according to a person briefed on the matter. Representatives of Alibaba and Softbank Corp., co-owner of Yahoo Japan Corp., are prepared to approach Yahoo Chief Executive Scott Thompson to explore another arrangement that would let companies buy back their stakes, said the person, who asked not to be identified because the talks are private. The value of the Asian assets is about $11.5 billion, said Sameet Sinha, an analyst at B. Riley & Co. in San Francisco.

Yahoo Inc. recently approached Hulu to discuss a possible acquisition of the popular online video service, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. Hulu, which streams television shows on the Internet, has been the subject of intense speculation about its future. The company, whose owners include media giants News Corp., Walt Disney Co. and Comcast Corp., has been struggling to find a balance between the desires of consumers to watch shows free online and its owners' interest in protecting the value of their programming.

The economy may be recovering, employers may be starting to hire again, but this probably isn't the best time to send your resume to Yahoo. The once-mighty Internet company says it's laying off 2,000 employees, or about 14% of its workers, as the new chief exec, Scott Thompson, attempts a sweeping reinvention of the search giant. Yahoo figures the cuts will save about $375 million annually. This is the company's sixth mass firing in the past four years under three different chief executives.

The new highly discussed and highly compensated chief executive of Yahoo, Marissa Mayer, has issued her first missive to her new troops two days after beginning the job. The main message: Don't stop, keep moving. "The company has been through a lot of change in the past few months, leaving many open questions around strategy and how to move forward. I am sensitive to this," she wrote, according to AllThingsD , who got ahold of the memo. Though she said she already has some ideas about how the company should move forward, Mayer said she wants first to develop perspective before developing a strategy, according to the memo.

SAN FRANCISCO - To punctuate his company's $1.1-billion purchase by Yahoo Inc., Tumblr co-founder and Chief Executive David Karp let loose in a blog post with a celebratory expletive. It was classic Karp, a 26-year-old high school dropout who built one of the Web's most popular outlets for personal expression. It was also a clever way to send a message to Tumblr users: It may have been bought out - earning Karp about $275 million - but Tumblr was going to stay irreverent.

After the coffee. Before going through two weeks' worth of mail. The Skinny: Well, I didn't win the Powerball lottery, which means I'll be heading back to the office today after a long trip to New York. Ask me around Thursday if it's good to be home. Monday's headlines include a recap of the weekend box office, Yahoo's purchase of Tumblr and the question of whether there are clouds over Warner Bros. movie chief Jeff Robinov. If you are so eager for the Morning Fix that you must know exactly when it is available online, please send me a note . Daily Dose: Now that the upfronts are over, everyone around town will start scrambling to see the pilots for all the new shows.

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer and Tumblr CEO David Karp both took to Tumblr Monday morning to confirm what we all suspected : Yahoo is buying Tumblr. Mayer's Yahoo will be paying $1.1 billion for Tumblr, most of it in cash, but the social network will continue to run independently. Live video chat: Join us at 2:30 p.m. Pacific Both Karp and Mayer used their blogs to assure users that Tumblr will continue to function the same, with Karp staying as CEO and continuing to lead the company.

SAN FRANCISCO - Yahoo Inc. Chief Executive Marissa Mayer is attempting a bold - and risky - strategy to turn around the struggling Internet giant with the $1.1-billion acquisition of Tumblr, a trendy social blogging service popular with teens and young adults. Though Yahoo still has a massive online audience, it's losing its grip on young people and how they consume the Internet on mobile devices. Tumblr, a 6-year-old company with 100 million users who share links, photos and blog posts, represents the new guard of the Internet.

Yahoo followed its purchase of Tumblr, a cool, hip brand, with a fresh revamp for Flickr, another cool and once beloved start-up that has struggled to retain its luster since it was acquired. The Sunnyvale, Calif., company said it was redesigning Flickr, a popular photo-sharing website it bought in 2005 that has been in a slow decline ever since the acquisition. But more importantly than the new website design, Yahoo also announced that it is giving all users 1 terabyte of storage, or about 1,000 gigabytes, that they can use for photos and video.

Many Tumblr users are already up in arms over worries that their beloved blogging service could lose its hip edge under Yahoo's control. The blogging website was filled with rants after Yahoo announced on Monday it was acquiring Tumblr for $1.1 billion. An online petition to stop Yahoo from buying Tumblr had already been signed by nearly 169,000 people as of late Monday afternoon.  “Yahoo is gonna ruin tumblr and Tumblr is the only reason why the world isn't in chaos rite now tumblr keeps people sane what if it shuts down.

Marissa Mayer has put an end to a prolonged slump in Yahoo revenue. Fourth-quarter revenue rose 2% to $1.35 billion, Yahoo's first full-year revenue increase in three years. It was the first full quarter under new Chief Executive Mayer, who joined the tech giant from Google in mid-July. Mayer has sparked hopes that she can turn around the beleaguered company. The company's fourth-quarter net income declined 8% to $272 million, or 23 cents a share. The earnings would have been higher if not for one-time accounting charges.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Yahoo's board of directors has approved a $1.1-billion cash acquisition of blogging site Tumblr. A deal could be announced as soon as Monday, the Wall Street Journal reported Sunday. It's the biggest -- and riskiest -- deal yet for Yahoo Chief Executive Marissa Mayer, who is trying to make pioneering Internet company relevant to younger generations who have gravitated to other services and to mobile devices. PHOTOS: The top smartphones of 2013 The board of the Sunnyvale, Calif., Internet company met Sunday to consider the transaction, which Mayer negotiated.

Yahoo is set to hold a news conference Monday, and many believe the company might announce it is acquiring Tumblr. Rumors began swirling Friday about the possible acquisition, saying Yahoo is interested in buying Tumblr, a social network whose popularity has soared recently, especially among teens and young adults. According to reports , the deal could be worth as much as $1 billion. Since Marissa Mayer took became chief executive of Yahoo last year, the company has been buying small start-ups, including one by a 17-year-old British entrepreneur for $30 million.