Marissa Mayer has made her boldest move to date as chief of Yahoo! with the billion-dollar purchase of Tumblr, a popular blogging platform she vowed not to ruin after protests from youthful users.

The two companies, one an aging Internet pioneer and the other a young smartphone-era startup, on Monday confirmed the deal, which keeps fast-growing Tumblr largely independent while integrating Yahoo!’s technology and ad tools.

“We promise not to screw it up,” Mayer said in a blog post on Tumblr, as Yahoo! moved its official company blog to the new platform.

“The product roadmap, their team, their wit and irreverence will all remain the same as will their mission to empower creators to make their best work and get it in front of the audience they deserve.”

Reaction was swift as the youthful user base of Tumblr put the California company on notice that they would hold it to the promise.

A Tumblr user posted an animated cartoon that showed Homer Simpson wearing a sandwich board sign bearing the message “The end is near” as he strode repeatedly past a Yahoo! logo altered to feature a giant “T.”

A petition titled “Stop Yahoo! from buying Tumblr” at website ipetitions.com topped 168,000 online signatures by midday.

Many Tumblr fans expressed fear that Yahoo! would clamp down on content in an effort to make Tumblr more family friendly, but Mayer was adamant that Yahoo! would not meddle.

“Tumblr is one of the fastest-growing media networks in the world,” and “brings a significant new community of users to Yahoo!” she added.

The companies said the deal is worth $1.1 billion, “substantially all of which is payable in cash.” Yahoo! chief financial officer Ken Goldman said it includes a “small amount of stock” for Tumblr founder and CEO David Karp.

Mayer said Tumblr would operate independently but that the groups would “work together to create advertising opportunities.”

Karp, in his own blog post, said he was “elated” about the agreement and sought to allay concerns about any changes.

“We’re not turning purple,” he wrote. “Our headquarters isn’t moving. Our team isn’t changing. Our roadmap isn’t changing… Simply, Tumblr gets better faster.”

The deal is expected to close in the second half of the year.

Yahoo! has been looking at a range of possible acquisitions since Mayer took the helm last year and vowed to revive the company, which has faded in the face of competition from Google.

Tumblr could be key to Yahoo!’s strategy because of its popularity with younger Internet users. A survey this year conducted by the online data group Survata found Tumblr more popular than Facebook among those aged 13 to 25.

“Tumblr has a good thing going,” Mayer said at a press conference in New York City to show off a revamped Flickr photo service.

A chat between Karp and Mayer last year led to the deal, she said.

While Tumblr generates very little cash, joining with Yahoo! could generate new advertising and other revenue sources.

“We hope this significantly contributes to our growth story,” Mayer said, envisioning benefits of combining online content as well as user demographics.

She noted that Yahoo! could integrate some Tumblr “streams” in its news and mobile feeds and could help the blogging platform develop better ads.

Yahoo! shares rose 0.83 percent to $26.80 in after-market trades. Analyst reaction was mixed.

Roger Kay at Endpoint Technologies said the deal “brings a social element that Yahoo! is missing and a set of new users.”

But Kay added that “paying $1.1 billion for a company with $13 million in revenue seems a little nuts to me… Those numbers aren’t even earnings, which are surely negative.

“So, even if Tumblr survives intact, Yahoo is unlikely to get its $1.1 billion back over any interval that falls within a human lifetime.”

Jordan Rohan at Stifel Nicolaus said Tumblr is “an under-monetized blogging platform” but that it “doesn’t solve Yahoo’s strategic issues.”

“There may be a debate about the sustainability of blogging platforms and the competitive advantages of Tumblr specifically,” Rohan added.

Analyst Rob Enderle of Enderle Group was also skeptical.

“I have no evidence that Meyer knows how to do an acquisition like this,” he said. “The chances this will end badly are very high.”

Founded in 2007 and headquartered in New York, Tumblr says it has more than 108 million blogs, 50 billion postings in 12 languages, and 175 employees.

The billion-dollar deal for Tumblr has stirred talk on the next big acquisition target in the sector, with cash-rich tech giants looking for the next potential star.

Yahoo!’s blockbuster deal for the popular blogging platform comes amid a battle for eyeballs on the Internet among big tech firms such as Facebook, Google, Amazon and Apple.

“All the big internet companies that have money are potential buyers,” said Michael Pachter, analyst at Wedbush Securities.

“Then it depends on what they want to be and how much they are willing to pay.”

Each of these firms is trying to get more users into their ecosystem to be able to gather data and “monetize” their user base, mainly by targeting them with ads tailored to their usage patterns, analysts say.

Yahoo! is believed to have outmaneuvered Facebook and Microsoft to get Tumblr, as the major tech giants look past the static Internet boxes to “streams” of content.

“We’re all shifting our attention to mobile devices, and we’ve adopted the ‘stream’ as our preferred method of content discovery and consumption,” says John Battelle, an entrepreneur who founded Wired and Federated Media Publishing.

“Yahoo! is already shifting its home page and other content sections to a stream like interface… And Tumblr was built from the ground up as an activity stream.”

The price tag paid by Yahoo! means “the bar now has been set high in terms of valuation,” said Allen Weiner at the research firm Gartner.

“It raises the question of what is a company like Twitter is worth.”

Perhaps the most prominent of the social media startups to remain private, Twitter “has yet to show an inclination to go public,” said Weiner, and it remains unclear whether Twitter will remain independent or be acquired.

Pinterest, which allows users to decorate virtual bulletin boards with pictures showcasing interests in anything from food to sports, fashion or travel, is clearly one of the new companies expected to be a target.

Weiner said, however, that Pinterest, seen last year as one of the rising starts in social media, “has not evolved quickly enough.”

“The ability to replicate the idea is pretty easy,” he said. “That said, I think someone will probably buy them.”

Trip Chowdhry at Global Equities Research said the hefty price for Tumblr could discourage buyouts, because the return on the investment is less clear.

“You may have engagement (at new social media sites) but maybe not the possibility to grab ad dollars,” he said.

“I just wonder if the acquisition that we see prices a lot of companies out of the market.”

Several other startups are likely still being courted, but the landscape has shifted in recent weeks, say analysts.

Dailymotion, the popular video-sharing site, was among those, but the French government’s move to block Yahoo!’s acquisition probably dampened enthusiasm for the unit of France Telecom.

That leaves Hulu, which is trying to catch Netflix in the streaming video space. Some reports suggested that Yahoo!, Amazon and others could be interested.

Foursquare, the location-based social media app, “was a prime target two years ago, I don’t think as much today,” said Weiner, because it is “struggling to monetize” its platform.

Shazam, an application allowing users to find music, is “interesting,” Weiner said, making it a possible target for a hardware maker.

Weiner said that “my favorite company to be acquired” is now Storify, a social network which allows users to create stories or timelines using social media.

“It is just in the right place at the right time,” he said, and could generate interest from companies like Google, Yahoo! or Facebook.

“It all depends on the price,” he said.

Yahoo! is just under two decades old and already showing signs of age. Tumblr, the cool blogging platform, represents a new generation.

This split marks both a challenge and an opportunity for the firms, after the announcement that Yahoo! is buying the six-year-old startup for $1.1 billion, mainly in cash.

“Yahoo users are behind the curve, Tumblr users too cool for school,” said Arvind Narayanan, a Princeton University computer scientist, in a tweet.

“From this POV (point of view) the acquisition seems ironically appropriate.”

Tumblr could be key to Yahoo! because of its popularity with younger Internet users. A survey this year conducted by the online data group Survata found Tumblr more popular than Facebook among those aged 13 to 25.

“Yahoo skews toward older demographics. Tumblr is ridiculously strong among Millennials,” said a tweet from Brian Solis, analyst with Altimeter Group.

Some comments posted on Tumblr as the news broke highlighted this generation gap, as if their parents were intervening to spoil the party.

“YAHOO, CLOSE TUMBLR AND YOU’LL DIE!” one Tumblr user wrote.

Another wrote: “Dear Yahoo … If you change anything, we will show up at your headquarters with fire and pitchforks. Don’t try us.”

Still another posted: “Please leave Tumblr alone. You acquired it for the cool factor… Don’t tinker with it; don’t change it … Leave it alone.”

Yahoo! chief executive Marissa Mayer, in announcing the deal, pledged to allow Tumblr to remain independent, while integrating technology and advertising opportunities.

“Per the agreement and our promise not to screw it up, Tumblr will be independently operated as a separate business,” Mayer said in a statement.

“David Karp will remain CEO. The product, service and brand will continue to be defined and developed separately with the same Tumblr irreverence, wit, and commitment to empower creators.”

Karp echoed those comments, saying in his own blog post: “We’re not turning purple,” in reference to the Yahoo! portal’s signature color.

But some analysts it could be hard for Mayer to keep her promise of keeping Tumblr independent while seeking ways to make the deal pay off.

“If I’m the CEO of Tumblr I would be concerned,” said Daniel Odio, senior vice president of California-based Internet firm Share This, who has been involved in a number of technology startups.

“Marissa is promising to keep it independent, but I just don’t buy it. Just looking at history, I would say that the culture that makes Tumblr special is going to change,” Odio told AFP.

Roger Kay, analyst with Endpoint Technologies Associates, also was skeptical about integrating the two different firms.

“There’s a particular thing in the hacker culture, and it is difficult for a large bureaucratic company like Yahoo! to keep that alive,” Kay said,

“Yahoo! once upon a time was an entrepreneurial company with all the spirit that Tumblr has, but they have been though a number of retreads. The best programmers have long since gone to other places.”

Kay said the deal also could prompt some of the staff at Tumblr, many of whom will get a big windfall from the deal, to cash out and move elsewhere.

“Marissa Mayer might have thought that she was buying a staff, but this is a place where you can least expect people to stick around,” Kay said.

“What they are buying is a bunch of code, and the customers and maybe the revenue stream,” he said.

“You can’t assume you’re buying the talent. The talent likes to decide which master they want to serve.”

Twitter and Irvine Welsh, the iconic “Trainspotting” author, are undeniably made for each other.

Welsh, whose latest film adaptation “Filth” will be shown to potential distributors in Cannes on Saturday, has taken to the micro-blogging site with alacrity, saying it helps him with the writing process.

The author proved his gift for memorable one-liners long before the age of Twitter with the now-cult “choose life” monologue from his 1993 debut “Trainspotting”. The oft-quoted speech lampooned a government anti-drugs campaign and was later immortalised by a young Ewan McGregor in Danny Boyle’s 1996 film adaption of the book.

Welsh’s Twitter following suggests he has not lost his touch: @WelshIrvine counts some 75,000 followers and his account stands at nearly 22,000 tweets.

His newest film “Filth” features a corrupt policeman played by Scottish actor James McAvoy and the story’s abundance of sex and drugs will likely make it as controversial as “Trainspotting”.

Welsh is still best known for his debut novel which tracks a group of drug addicts in their destructive downward spiral across Edinburgh — trainspotting is slang for injecting heroin.

The tale of lost youth and cynical redemption became a crossover cinema smash, catapulting Welsh, himself a one-time Edinburgh heroin addict, to global success.

These days Welsh has swapped the Scottish capital for the United States where, he says, he uses Twitter to hone his output “in character” during writing.

Welsh said he was “absolutely obsessed” with Twitter one year after joining, but he said he had no time for that other major social network.

“I hate Facebook — for one thing, I get stopped by all these birds who wouldn’t shag me in the day, but now they’re on their second divorce,” Welsh said as he sat down with AFP in Brussels before his departure for the Cannes film festival.

Welsh helped build a Twitter profile with a series of expletive-laden tweets cheering on Scottish tennis star Andy Murray to his first Grand Slam title last September, when he beat Novak Djokovic at the US Open.

“I don’t think you can be too self-conscious about it,” Welsh said of an online style he says allows him to re-connect with “the guys down the pub” while filling holes in his literary output schedule for fans.

“Otherwise, you’re killing the golden goose that lays the egg.”

Welsh, fresh from a Brussels conference on digital content, said he saw purpose in Twitter as it could help change world views for a Europe-wide generation of nihilistic youths threatened by the continent’s longest-ever recession.

The writer says he has seen up close “Trainspotting” character clones, “from Cape Town to Moscow.”

“Drug consumption wins by default when there’s nothing else there — intoxication and festivity is as old as the hills, but now it’s been replaced by the idea of blotting out the terrors of life.

“It’s like going to a zoo, you see these polar bears buzzing about in a loop — dysfunctional, we’re doping ourselves up on drugs, on shopping and reality TV to get through the pain… It doesn’t go anywhere!”

He urged those who see little hope after taking a battering from the financial crisis to use the power of social media to open new doors, saying the online platforms offered a window into activism.

As for his own country, Welsh said he could see stirrings of hope nearly 20 years after the experiences that inspired “Trainspotting.”

Scotland votes in September 2014 in a referendum on independence from the rest of the United Kingdom and Welsh has argued passionately in favour of Scotland assuming statehood in its own right.

Ever the provocateur, he even suggested to AFP that there might be lessons here for his adopted home.

“America is a country that’s crying out for a two-state solution,” Welsh said, utterly deadpan.

“I always think, let these states that have guns, God and anti-abortion, let them go!

“New York, Hollywood and the rest… let them, and the southern states, do their own things.”

An unemployed drifter who became an Internet sensation in February after he brandished a hatchet to stop an assault has been charged with murder following his arrest in Philadelphia, police said.

Caleb Lawrence McGillvary, 24, was detained at a bus station on Thursday after a manhunt following the murder of 73-year-old Joseph Galfy in the New Jersey town of Clark, just outside New York on Sunday.

McGillvary became the subject of a hit viral video earlier this year after he was reported to have intervened to help a man being attacked by the crazed driver of a car in California.

His animated interview with a local television station in Fresno following the attack — in which he described chasing off the attacker with his hatchet — went viral and garnered national attention.

However, McGillvary was sought by authorities after Galfy was found bludgeoned to death at his home. McGillvary had gone to Galfy’s home after meeting him in Times Square, New York on Saturday.

Prosecutors said McGillvary was arrested in Philadelphia despite efforts to change his appearance by cutting his hair.

He was detained on $3 million bail and will be transferred to New Jersey “in the coming days,” a statement said.

“I am grateful for the overwhelming response and dedicated effort by the public and law enforcement that led to this arrest,” Union County prosecutor Theodore Romankow said. “I believe that everyone is a little safer with this person off the streets.”

A group of US lawmakers has asked Google to answer questions on the privacy implications and possible “misuse of information” of its Google Glass project.

Eight lawmakers in the Congressional Privacy Caucus sent a letter Thursday saying they are “curious whether this new technology could infringe on the privacy of the average American.”

The lawmakers asked Google to provide information about how it would collect and use data from the Internet-linked eyewear, which has been tested by a small group of users and is expected to hit the market later this year.

Caucus chair Joe Barton said in a statement the lawmakers “are concerned about possible misuse of information gathered by Google Glass.”

“When using Google Glass, is it true that this product would be able to use facial recognition technology to unveil personal information about whomever and even some inanimate objects that the user is viewing?” the letter asked.

“Would a user be able to request such information? Can a non-user or human subject opt out of this collection of personal data? If so, how? If not, why not?”

The lawmakers also asked whether Google Glass has the capacity to store any data, if it will have user authentication and whether any privacy protections for non-users would be in place.

Google has faced privacy investigations on both sides of the Atlantic. European officials are pressing the Internet giant on data protection and privacy.

In the US, Google has been fined for collecting people’s personal data without authorization as it combed neighborhoods for its Street View service.

Glass connects to the Internet using Wi-Fi hot spots or, more typically, by being wirelessly tethered to mobile phones. Pictures or video are shared through the Google Plus social network.

Google co-founder and chief Larry Page depicted Glass this week as part of an ongoing effort to get computers “out of the way” so people can focus on lives enriched by what the Internet has to offer.

The letter was signed by Barton and Representatives John Barrow, Steve Chabot, Henry Johnson, Walter Jones, Richard Nugent, Bobby Rush and Loretta Sanchez.

Facebook and Twitter launched applications Thursday for Google glasses as developers rushed to learn more about tailoring software for the Internet-linked eyewear yet to hit the market.

“Built by Facebook, this app allows you to upload photos from Google Glass directly to your Facebook timeline,” Erick Tseng, head of mobile products at the social network, said in a message posted from the Google developers conference.

“You can also add an optional photo description, just by speaking it.”

Tseng’s Facebook page displayed an image evidently taken in a packed Glass session at the gathering and was tagged as the first public post to the social network using the application built for the eyewear.

“Can’t wait to start seeing Google Glass photos in my News Feed!” Tseng said.

Globally popular one-to-many messaging service Twitter also introduced an application for Glass.

Twitter for Google Glass let people share pictures or text messages using the glasses, according to engineering manager Shiv Ramamurthi.

Ramamurthi demonstrated his point by tweeting an image from one of the array of sessions devoted to providing developers with insights and tools for making software for Glass. He gave the picture the hashtag #throughglass.

“In addition to sharing photos, you can also keep up with the people you follow on Twitter through notifications,” Ramamurthi said. “As always, you can reply to, retweet or favorite these Tweets.”

Several major news organizations have also tailored applications for Glass, which has only been made available to developers and a limited selection of “explorers” who paid $1,500 each for the eyewear.

New Zealand’s Supreme Court on Thursday granted Kim Dotcom leave to appeal a ruling that US authorities do not have to disclose all of the evidence they have against the Megaupload founder.

The Court of Appeal in March had overturned a decision ordering US prosecutors to hand over the evidence to Dotcom’s legal team as they seek to extradite him to face online piracy charges.

The appeal court ruled that a summary of the case would suffice.

Dotcom’s lawyers have sought to reinstate the original decision, arguing they could not effectively fight the extradition battle without full disclosure of the evidence against their client.

The Supreme Court agreed to hear Dotcom’s legal challenge at a date yet to be set. “Leave to appeal is granted,” it said in a two-paragraph ruling.

Lawyers representing the United States had argued in the appeal court that the evidence could involve billions of emails and that full disclosure would likely delay Dotcom’s extradition hearing, scheduled for August.

The US Justice Department and FBI want Dotcom to face charges of racketeering, fraud, money-laundering and copyright theft in a US court, which could see him jailed for up to 20 years if convicted.

Dotcom is free on bail. He denies US allegations the Megaupload sites netted more than US$175 million in criminal proceeds and cost copyright owners more than US$500 million by offering pirated copies of movies, TV shows and other content.

The German national, who was arrested in an armed police raid on his Auckland mansion in January last year, launched a successor to Megaupload called Mega in January this year.

Internet giant Amazon on Wednesday came under fresh fire over its British tax status after official figures revealed it only paid £2.4 million ($3.6 million, 2.8 million euros)on UK sales of £4.2 billion last year.

Figures filed to investors in the online retailer will increase the scrutiny on company executives when they appear before a parliamentary committee on Thursday to clarify previous evidence they gave about their tax arrangements.

The US-based company used a subsidiary registered in Luxembourg to limit its British corporation tax bill to £2.4 million, £100,000 less than it received in government grants over the same period.

British lawmakers last year urged tax collectors to be more aggressive in confronting global companies who use tax avoidance, amid rising public anger over the issue.

Parliament’s public accounts committee released its report about one month after it quizzed senior figures from coffee chain Starbucks, Amazon and Internet search giant Google.

Margaret Hodge, who chairs the committee, said at the time: “Global companies with huge operations in the UK generating significant amounts of income are getting away with paying little or no corporation tax here.

“This is outrageous and an insult to British businesses and individuals who pay their fair share.”

She described Wednesday’s figures as “just a joke”.

“What people will find particularly galling is that the amount Amazon is paying in tax is actually less than they are taking from UK taxpayers in the form of government grants,” she said.

“Companies like Amazon should pay their fair share of tax based on their economic activity in this country and the profits they make here.”

A spokesman for the Seattle-based company said the company had complied with the law and highlighted its plans to create 2,000 British jobs over the next two years.

An anonymous bidder paid $610,000 in a charity auction for coffee date with Apple chief Tim Cook, the organizers said Wednesday.

The Tim Cook auction tied the record for highest winning bid at charity auction site Charitybuzz, according to a statement from the group and its partner, The Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice & Human Rights.

The bid tied a record set by a 2013 Lamborghini Aventador Roadster auctioned in March 2013 for $610,000, the statement said.

“We’re truly amazed by the results of Tim Cook’s remarkable donation,” said Coppy Holzman, Charitybuzz chief executive and founder.

“Sincere thanks goes out to Charitybuzz’s community of socially conscious bidders here in the US and overseas… we are thrilled to have amassed more than $1 million this spring for the RFK Center’s powerful work.”

The coffee chat with Cook was limited to two guests, who would be subject to security screening and be responsible for their own travel and accommodations.

It was the first time that Cook made his time available as part of the annual fundraising event.

The center is also raising money with other celebrity-laden offers, such as a lunch with famed filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola in California wine country, and time with actors Robert DeNiro, Alec Baldwin or William Shatner.

It plans to auction a chance to tour Space-X rocket, a day at training camp with NFL quarterback Peyton Manning and lunch with Robin Williams on the set of his next film.