Yahoo has officially announced its plans to acquire Tumblr for $1.1 billion. Much like Facebook’s $1 billion acquisition of Instagram in 2012, Yahoo’s latest purchase will bring the company a younger user base with the promise of more revenue.
We're kicking off our upcoming Social Media Marketing Boot Camp with a special keynote presentation by Ella Chick (left), the digital producer at Anderson Cooper 360°. She'll discuss how the network uses social media for breaking news and leverages social media to draw attention to organizations and causes. Learn more about our program and register here. 
Certain brands are now sharing offers with the people in their circles on Google+, Google announced today. The deals can be redeemed online with a code or in-store using the Google Offers mobile app. Here’s a quick run-down of what happens when you click on a deal.
The daily deals service LivingSocial has been hacked and will begin sending notifications out to users this afternoon. Fifty million of the company’s 70 million users were affected.
In its second laundry list of product closures since Marissa Mayer began her effort to turn the company around, Yahoo announced today that it would close some of its Mail and Messenger apps for feature phones and older versions of its desktop Mail app.
Curalate and ePrize have announced a strategic partnership to improve the process of running sweepstakes and contests on the image bookmarking site Pinterest. Curalate CEO and co-founder Apu Gupta told SocialTimes, “Together, Curalate brings the technology and ePrize brings the ability to handle the legal aspects and prize fulfillment components of running promotions.”
In a move to make LinkedIn “the definitive professional publishing platform,” the company has acquired Pulse, the makers of a news reader and mobile content distribution platform.
Since 2009, Foursquare has redesigned everything about its local search service except its revenue strategy while competitors like Groupon and LivingSocial have raced ahead. But there is a method to this company’s madness. Bloomberg reports that Foursquare has raised $41 million in debt financing rather than shares to give Foursquare time to expand before investors start demanding a profit.
Travel review community TripAdvisor has acquired Jetsetter, Gilt Groupe’s luxury private sale site where professional travel reviewers cherry-pick the best local hotspots. Despite its similarities to TripAdvisor’s SniqueAway, TripAdvisor has no plans to shutter the newly acquired site.
Yahoo! Inc. has acquired Summly, a mobile app for browsing article summaries pulled from around the web. The news follows Google’s decision to shut down Google Reader this summer.
TripAdvisor has announced a partnership with the global data company Factual, Inc. that will add more restaurant listings to the travel site. TripAdvisor is known for its candid reviews of hotels from real travelers.
