An insider from Yahoo Inc. has leaked that Yahoo board approved to purchase $1.1 billion in cash for Tumblr but Tumblr would carry on as an independent company, The Wall Street Journal reports. The insider said that the deal was approved through an investor's call on Friday and all official announcements are to be made public on Monday.

Tumblr was introduced to the online world in 2007 and had drastically acquired social media followers for its platform make it convenient for people to share their blogs and photos. Members can also follow other member and can receive updates via feed.

Tumblr was loved for its simple design which makes online publishing handy, especially with blogging merged with social media.

David Karp, Tumblr Chief Executive, makes Tumblr a success by focusing on users' need to have a blogging and photo-sharing platform for free rather than aiming for high revenue right away. By 2012, with its large number of users, advertisers placed their ads on the site. Advertisement placement allows Tumblr to earn $13 million in 2012, a big figure for a small 6-year-old internet company.

During the month of March of this year, Tumblr already has a remarkable 117 million users around the world, increasing from about 58 million in 2012. According to comScore, Tumblr has 12 million unique visitors up from about four million last year.

The Advantage

Steven Rosenbaum, a contributor from Forbes.com says that Tumblr will definitely gain from the deal with Yahoo because Yahoo will protect the Tumblr users from onslaught of ads.

Rosenbaum says that, "Yahoo needs Tumblr to remain pure, and to keep the core users happy. Yahoo has plenty of related ad supported pages to introduce to the Tumblr community, and tons of new video offerings that will come with pre-roll avails. So the Yahoo deal protects the Tumblr users from an onslaught of ads that otherwise were on the horizon. This is good for both."

Rosenbaum also argues that Yahoo will sanitize Tumblr content. The majority of Tumblr users are fond of making Tumblr fandoms and gifs which are potential IP violations. Also, there is reportedly noticeable number of porn pages found on Tumblr. But, even with Yahoo sanitizing such content for Tumblr, the company says that as per running Tumblr and growing the brand, Yahoo leaves everything upon CEO David Karp's own discretion.

On the other hand, a Yahoo insider said that Yahoo believes it will be beneficial for Tumblr to bring in money through advertisement sales while it is also a big channel for Yahoo to boost its own revenue.

Through its agreement with Yahoo, Tumblr will be able to continue its service as a free blogging site while leaving Yahoo to worry about earning the money.

The Disadvantage

Tumblr is set to lose its majority of teen users.

The purchase of Tumblr by Yahoo was not officially announced yet, but Tumblr's teen users are already expressing their strong disapproval.

This does not sound good for Tumblr. Teens are the means of support if a company is aiming for a wide and stable social networking. Teens show a strong preference for Tumblr as compared to Facebook and Twitter and by the look at teen's reaction to the news, Tumblr is seen to lose its biggest chunk of users.

Teens have been expressing their disapproval through GIFs and photoshopped photos they post on Tumblr's site.

If the deal does push through, a new blogging site is seen to be possibly replacing Tumblr in the hearts of the core teen users.