FOTI #30: Yahoo Is Buying Tumblr

Fortnight on the Internets is having a Yahoo buyout meltdown!

On this episode, we talk about the big moves being made by Yahoo! and its CEO Marissa Mayer, keyed by this week’s stunning announcement that the company had paid 1.1B to acquire Tumblr. And as always, we have a breakdown of the latest breakout viral videos. We have music from So Many Wizards, and tons of great contribs from our Likers!

Who Said It: Dr. Phil or Dr. Funke?

Take the quiz and see if you can beat Alison’s score of 7 out of 9! Lady knows her Dr. Phil, that’s for sure. Props to Mental Floss for this excellent idea to celebrate the return of Arrested Development as a webseries.

Internet Report Card

This is Alpine’s grumpiest report card ever! Hear him grumble and sigh his way through this selection of recent viral hits.

#1. This Is What Crazy Looks Like via Text Message

We re-enact the tales of two crazy singles who scared the bejesus out of their crushes with avalanches of nutty texts. We’ve got crazy girl JJ, and crazy anonymous guy — seems having to text a love interest makes fools of us all.

Thanks to Buzzfeed for posting these two epic meltdowns. Samples below — click the links for the full sagas.

And here’s Aziz Ansari’s typically amazing take on the brutal world of crush-texting:

#2. Pumpcast News (The Tonight Show)

Here’s the first thing Jay Leno ever got to go viral that didn’t involve stabbing Conan in the back:

The Smoking Gun debunked this setup pretty effectively…

Also, here’s Slate’s outstanding breakdown of who can get away with BSing and who can’t!

#3. Convos With My 2-Year-Old

Another in an endless series of “wacky kids saying some crazy stuff” videos. Good for laughs, no question, thanks mostly to the fine work of David Milchard as the 2 year old. Also, outstanding Coco cameo.

Episode 2 is now out. Also, the Sonic Youth kid is named Coco Hayley Gordon Moore.

Our Musical Guest: SO MANY WIZARDS

Our musical guest this fortnight, whom we just heard, is a delightful LA band that was introduced to us by way of friend of the podcast and way cool music dude, Paul…So Many Wizards.

They are fronted by Nima Kazerouni, who has lived a life that started in the middle of a war in Iran, stretched across five countries and four continents and finally landed in Los Angeles’ thriving D.I.Y. pop community focused around venues like The Smell and Pehrspace. As Dummy Mag put it regarding their debut LP Warm Nothing: “it’s a fluent statement of intent, refreshingly tuneful and untroubled, and recalls that fabulous quip about LA – it may only have one season, but at least it’s the best one.”

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Internet Challenge Surprise!

We celebrate the Tumblr of Rep. Mark Takano of California’s 41st District: There Will Be Charts.

Takano and his web staff do an amazing job of blending political wonkiness with eminently-rebloggable Tumblr content in the form of memes, GIFs and Vine videos. He also does a really good job of breaking down both important and frivolous political topics with charts and graphs that amuse and inform.

Do you know of a conservative Congressman’s website that is as joyous as this one? Let us know and we’ll do a Crossfire-style showdown to determine the most Tumblr-savvy MOC!

Yahoo Is Buying Tumblr

This episode’s main event, in which we break down the high drama surrounding the massive bid for Tumblr by Marissa Mayer, CEO of web giant Yahoo. Can Mayer get the venerable Internet company back on course?

Some background info and further reading you might enjoy:

• Techcrunch’s overview of the changes in Yahoo work-from-home policy: “Mayer will be putting the official smackdown on remote workers come June.”

• Wired opines: “Yahoo’s Mayer is Right: Work-from-Home Employees are Less Efficient.”

• HuffPo’s Lisa Solod hits Mayer on maternity leave policies.
• Mayer responds by adding a couple of weeks to parental leave at Yahoo.
• Here’s our old episode about Flickr and its original decline into irrelevance — prior to this fortnight’s Mayer-led rework into an Instagram-type social site.
• Controversy over the Flickr remodel via photo site PetaPixel — Mayer says “there are no professional photographers anymore,” then backtracks under fire.
• NYT’s David Pogue hails the new Flickr: “After years of falling short, Flickr was reborn last week. And every free account holder gets one terabyte of storage, a vast amount of space.”
• The Tumblr buy: The Fiscal Times notes “Marissa Mayer’s Risky Bet at Yahoo: No Guts, No Glory.”
• Mayer maintains that Tumblr will operate independently.
• Yahoo Buyout Meltdowns — the perfectly timed Tumblr.
• and BREAKING: Yahoo now circling Hulu.

We’ll keep tracking this fascinating story and watching Mayer’s disruptive, compelling remake of one of the Web’s most venerable behemoths.

Shoutout to the Likers!

As always, thanks to our co-conspirator Jeni Sue, who constantly posts gems to our Facebook page, and recently celebrated her birthday…Happy Birthday JSB!

Some Likers who we need to give props to this fortnight:

• Liker RJ for cluing us in to the Y.N. RichKids’ follow up to “Hot Cheetos and Takis”;
• Liker Nic S. for sending us Pumpcast News;
• Liker Mike D. for Snoop’s interview with Cleveland hero Charles Ramsey;
• and Liker Neil C. for charting the legal fallout from the Amy’s Baking Company Facebook meltdown.

Which brings us to the Liker of the Fortnight…LIKER ERINN from Phoenix for her amazing, bold venture into Amy’s Baking Company. It began with the innocent aim of getting a quiche and finding out more about this newsmaking restaurant, and ended in an angry confrontation and her ejection from the premises — and her five-year-old daughter learning one of the most vile swear words known to man from the lips of the proprietress. You simply must hear her story and you’ll agree that she is most deserving of this honor.

Thanks for listening, everyone! We will be on hiatus for the month of June, but back before you know it!

Theme song by Snowplows: Check out their songs on Bandcamp!
Cover art by Vicious Rumors.