21 May Dan Abrams’ Web Properties Today

From Mediaite: Big news in the tech world this week as Yahoo acquired Tumblr for a cool $1.1 billion. Mediaite reports on some of the media coverage: “CEOs Marissa Mayer and David Karp, of Yahoo and Tumblr respectively, appeared onGood Morning America on Tuesday to explain how they plan to join forces while also allowing Tumblr to maintain its identity. ‘Hipster high-school dropout’ Karp (a characterization he didn’t appear fond of) will remain Tumblr’s CEO, but George Stephanopoulos questioned how the Yahoo will avoid some of its past failures when other acquisitions didn’t quite pan out. Mayer asserted that Tumblr’s user community makes the site unique — and that community understands the site will remain independent, with the same vision it’s always had.” Read on and watch the segment here.

From Gossip Cop: The saga of Justin Bieber’s monkey continues. Gossip Cop reports, “Justin Bieber’s beloved pet monkey is about to become property of Germany. The performer’s pal Mally was seized by customs officials in March because The Biebs, on tour in the country, could not present the proper entrance papers. German authorities did not receive the documents by last Friday’s midnight deadline, and when offices reopened on Tuesday following a long holiday weekend, ownership of Mally formally transferred from Bieber to the country of Germany. Mally has been at a Munich animal shelter since the quarantine. Bieber has six weeks to contest the decision. Stay tuned.” See the story here.

From Geekosystem: LinkedIn is putting an end to prostitution. Geekosystem explains, “LinkedIn just updated their user agreement, and it brings some bad news for sex workers. The updated UA explicitly bans the use of LinkedIn to promote prostitution and escort services — even in places where those things are legal. I don’t know how widely LinkedIn is used by the sex worker community, but this is bound to upset some people. A representative from LinkedIn told The Daily Dot, ‘There really is no story here. Here’s the reality — we have always prohibited these kinds of profiles. The recent change in our UA just makes it more explicitly prohibited.’ That sounds like LinkedIn is trying to retcon their policy on prostitution.” Read the full story here.

From Styleite: Heidi Klum proved last night she is much more than just a supermodel. Styleite reports, “Heidi Klum is quite the multitalented woman. In fact, now that we think of it, perhaps that’s why they picked her as one of the new judges of America’s Got Talent this season. In any case, the model showed off one of her more obscure skills yesterday on the set of The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, belting out a yodel worthy of the Lonely Goatherd himself. And, because one absurdly attractive yodeler is never enough, she invited Bradley Cooper to join in. The whole idea came from a memorable, if not exactly successful, AGT contestant who dressed up like an alien, donned lederhosen, and took the stage to give what Klum thought was a rather weak performance.” See video of her own version here.

From SportsGrid: A Miami Marlins pitcher brought back the spitball last night. SportsGrid explains, “After all the controversy the Clay Buchholz accusation got a few weeks ago, you’d think MLB pitchers would be a little more careful if they decided to fudge and/or break the rules of the game a little bit. But Alex Sanabia went to the school of ‘gives no f*cks’ and blatantly spit on a baseball in the second inning of the Marlins-Phillies game last night. It’s so obvious, it’s as if he doesn’t know that spitballs were outlawed in 1920. That Sanabia spit on the ball is bad enough. That it appeared to coincide with him not giving up another run over the next 6 1/3 innings is even worse. It’s unlikely that he played with that same ball over that entire span, but he knows how many other balls he spit on or licked or rubbed on the back of his neck.” Read on and see the spitting here.

From The Mary Sue: Get yourself to New Zealand quickly! The Mary Sue’s Jill Pantozzi explains, “Peter Jackson steps into the fray once more in order to have enough scenes for three complete Hobbit films. Can it be done?  The director seems to be on his own epic journey as far as filming J.R.R. Tolkien’s work is concerned. When we found out Jackson was intent on making three films as opposed to two out of The Hobbit novel, we unanimously groaned. Personally, I had faith he could do it. That is, until after I saw The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and realized I didn’t actually want to sit through two more films like that.But I digress, the wheels of Mordor are turning and extra scenes must be filmed for all of this to play out the way Jackson intends. Yesterday, he updated his Facebook with this message: ‘Back on set for our last Hobbit pick ups.'” Read on here.

From The Jane Dough: Men often get upset by being “friend zoned,” but now one female is speaking out against being “girlfriend zoned.” The Jane Dough explains, “So we can all agree that the friend-zone isn’t real, right? Some ‘Nice Guy’ complaining about how he got ‘friend-zoned’ by a girl — because heaven knows that if a dude spends any time with a lady and does her the minium kindness like opens a door or doesn’t try to assault her, he deserves to get the sex — is pretty much the most obnoxious thing in the world but it continues happen, especially in the Internet’s darkest corners. If you hate the term ‘friend-zone’ as much as I do, you’ll take great pleasure in this brilliant satire of the whole argument by Tumblr user literaryreference.” Check it out here.

From The Braiser: The food community is stepping up to the plate to help out the victims of yesterday’s tragic tornado in Oklahoma. Reports The Braiser, “Although Robicelli’s got legendarily rained out of GoogaMooga last weekend (leading to a furious Twitter rant of barely repressed, justifiable rage), there’s still charity in Allison Robicelli’s heart to fundraise for Team Rubicon, a disaster relief group, immediately after yesterday’s devastating tornadoes in Oklahoma City. But why raise $35,000 to feed Team Rubicon? According to her fundraising page on ‘Operation: Starting Gun,’ Robicelli praised the team of US veterans, specifically trained to respond to disasters, for immediately assisting New Yorkers and her bakery after Hurricane Sandy — unlike the Red Cross: ‘We urge you to donate to them rather than the Red Cross, who was MIA in the days after Sandy.'” Read on here.