That’ll come to $1.1Bn please…..

So last week of speculation was all leading to something.  A press call in NYC on Monday got the media pack in a state of frenzy, well sort of.

I’m liking Marissa’s approach, she knows she has to acquire but also prune back what isn’t working (mobile for a start) and work up.  Flickr on iPhone is nice and the measurable increase proves it.

Tumblr, yes it’s users and yes it’s content.  And from that content is not so much social connection but interest group connections.  It’s all back to the advertising $$$ again folks.  For Yahoo this is an obvious and calculated move that makes sense.  Yahoo know they don’t need to bother with social connections, there’s too much out there of that sort of thing already it would just be another pebble in the noise pool.

Interest mapping is another ballgame and not many folk are doing it well. Tumblr users tend to very focused on one thing like a food blog, fashion blog or car blog. Finding the passionate ones to advertise to in their chosen interest stream just makes sense.

Whether this turns in to another walled garden episode remains to be seen. Summly got canned quick as soon as it was acquired.  While I can’t see Tumblr getting canned that quick lest we forget that Posterous died a slow withering death once the Twitter acquisition happened.

I’m hoping this shopping trip will support the users as well as the Tumblr founders and investors.  That remains to be seen, let’s see what tomorrow brings.