????雅虎（Yahoo）11億美元收購輕博客網站Tumblr，看來像是首席執行官瑪麗莎?梅耶爾一次昂貴卻失誤的嘗試——為了讓停留在Web 1.0時代的雅虎重新變酷。雅虎目前處境艱難，不過前谷歌（Google）高管梅耶爾并不打算靠大力創新走出困境，而是拿起雅虎的提款卡，在不到一年的時間里將10家公司收入囊中。Tumblr是迄今為止數額最大的交易，但時間長了可能就會證明毫無用處。因為Tumblr的內容存在問題——大部分輕博客對廣告商來說并不安全。

????女中豪杰梅耶爾去年接手雅虎時，投資界曾經一片歡呼雀躍。過去十年，雅虎完成了從懵懂青蔥少年到成年人的轉變，但該公司的業務一直沒有起色。投資者對梅耶爾寄予厚望，希望她能讓雅虎起死回生。梅耶爾頭頂耀眼的谷歌光環，她或許能重塑雅虎破爛不堪的搜索引擎，并能梳理好過去幾年該公司收購來一籮筐公司。

????梅耶爾的巨星效應不可否認。自去年7月上任以來，雅虎股價已累計上漲約70%。不過，現實情況卻是雅虎的核心盈利起色不大，在搜索領域繼續喪城失地，根據調研機構comScore的數據，雅虎搜索的市場份額從去年第二季度的13%滑落至今年第一季度的11%左右。去年雅虎的每股盈利增長大部分來自股票回購、稅收優惠和前任管理團隊所采取的成本削減政策。

????雅虎目前的市值大部分來自兩處亞洲核心資產：日本雅虎和中國電子商務巨頭阿里巴巴（去年第三季度，雅虎拋售了大部分所持阿里巴巴股票以進行自身的股票回購）。雅虎從阿里巴巴這頭奶牛身上狠狠撈了一筆，暫時喂飽了饑餓的股東。該公司目前亟需要做的是擴大營收。梅耶爾認為雅虎當下應該擴充移動互聯網實力。研究表明使用手機和平板電腦訪問互聯網的用戶越來越多，傳統PC和筆記本用戶正呈下降趨勢。調研公司eMarketer表示，美國市場移動互聯網廣告開支今年有望達到40億美元，比去年上漲72%。

????在過去一年，梅耶爾一共收購了10家移動應用程序開發商，每家都花費了數百萬美元。雖然移動是大勢所趨，但雅虎的收購顯然吃了不少苦，換句話說，花了冤枉錢。例如，雅虎用3000萬美元現金收購的Summly在硅谷徹底淪為笑柄，這款iPhone應用是由一個十來歲的孩子開發的，而且沒有營收。

????在Tumblr的11億美元襯托下，雅虎其它收購看來都不值一提了。如果你不是青少年，不是時尚人士，不是極客，也不是人體藝術欣賞者，那Tumblr就僅僅是一個“輕博客”，任何人都可以在上面暢所欲言。不過Tumblr的意義不僅僅是個和谷歌博客類似的博客站點，它擁有自己的社群，核心用戶們會耗費大量時間閱讀和張貼內容（例如視頻），并將其他人的內容轉記到私人Tumblr里。Tumblr使用起來很簡單，界面也很清晰明了，年輕的用戶群，穿著套頭衫的創始人，表現不錯的移動市場，十分給力的“分享”力度——堪稱一個完美的Web 2.0產品。但Tumblr的營收乏善可陳，今年的營收目標更是不切實際的1億美元（去年僅為1200萬美元），而且管理團隊對廣告極為抵制。

????Yahoo's $1.1 billion acquisition of Tumblr looks like an expensive and misguided attempt by chief executive Marissa Mayer to somehow make the Web 1.0 company "cool" again. Instead of innovating her way out of the mediocre corner of the Internet in which Yahoo currently resides, the former Google executive has instead decided to take the company's debit card and go on a shopping spree, snapping up 10 companies in less than a year on the job. Tumblr is by far the most expensive bauble she has picked up so far and could prove a dud over the long term given its questionable content, much of which is "NSFA" -- Not Safe For Advertisers.

????When Mayer took the helm at Yahoo (YHOO) last year, investors were ecstatic. The company had been on a listless voyage over the previous decade as it struggled to move from awkward adolescence into adulthood. Ms. Mayer's appointment gave investors hope that Yahoo could somehow be pulled back from the brink of technological irrelevance. She was seen as a bright star equipped with the magic Google (GOOG) touch that would, hopefully, help restore Yahoo's rusty search engine as well as the hodgepodge of companies it acquired over the years.

????Mayer's star power is undeniable. Yahoo's stock is now up around 70% since her appointment to the top job in July of last year. This is despite the fact that Yahoo's core earnings have remained relatively flat and that it has continued to lose ground in search, moving from a 13% market share last summer to around an 11% share in the first quarter of this year, according to data from comScore (SCOR). Much of the company's earnings per share growth in the past year has come from stock buybacks, paying less in taxes and cost-cutting measures instituted by its former management team.

????Most of Yahoo's value derives from its two core Asian assets, Yahoo Japan and the Chinese internet bazaar, Alibaba (much of which the company sold off last fall to pay for a big stock buyback). After slaughtering the Alibaba cow to give a lavish feast to its starved shareholders, Yahoo needs desperately to replenish its earnings. Mayer rightly believes that Yahoo should be doing more to expand its presence on the mobile web. Studies show people are increasingly turning to their phones and tablets to access the web instead of the traditional desktop or laptop. Mobile web advertising spending in the U.S. is expected to explode to around $4 billion this year, up 72% from last year, according to eMarketer.

????So far, Mayer has snapped up 10 mobile-centric app companies in the past year, paying a few million dollars for each of them. While mobile is the way of the future, the company's approach has faults -- namely, backlash. For example, dolling out $30 million in cash for Summly -- an iPhone app made by a teenager that has no revenue -- was greeted by Silicon Valley with derision.

????Now comes Tumblr. At $1.1 billion, it makes Yahoo's other purchases look like rounding errors. For those who aren't teenagers, fashionistas, tech geeks, or porn aficionados Tumblr is a "microblogging" site where anyone can post pretty much anything they want. But Tumblr is more than just a big web hosting blog site, like Google's Blogger -- it has a true community of core users who spend hours upon hours reading, posting gifs (moving pictures), and "reblogging" each other's posts to their own personal Tumblrs. It's easy to set up, has a clean interface, a young user base, a hoodie-sporting founder, a decent mobile presence, and lots of "sharing" -- the perfect Web 2.0 brew. It also has scant revenue, unrealistic revenue goals of $100 million this year (it made around $12 million last year), and a management team that thinks advertising sucks.