I don't think they're totally in the wrong reporting on on tumblr. The purchase of Tumblr by Yahoo is far more relevant to the majority of readers than Warner Chilcott. We use and interact with Tumblr, know about it's features, and understand the history of the new owner. This isn't just a story about a big number.
Actavis is this third largest generic drug manufacturer in the world and Warner Chilcott is also up there, most notable for buying Procter & Gamble's prescription drug arm a few years back. They make everything from aspirin to Prozac and chances are you're taking a drug manufactured by one of these two companies and it's pretty likely that you know someone who is kept alive by their products.
Merges in pharma often come with increased manufacturing capabilities and more efficient sales. Done right this merger could save people tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars a year in drugs around the world and make them more accessible. You really think that has less impact than Tumblr?
The problem with your reasoning is that people already know that the pharma industry has a complex industrial structure, and that mergers happen from time to time. Furthermore, prices change constantly for a variety of reasons. None of this imply that this merger is particularly interesting as news.
By your logic, people should be constantly bombarded with "important" stuff like price indices for medical services, world food prices, aggregate steel production, measures of industry concentration in the wholesale corn market etc.
"By your logic, people should be constantly bombarded with "important" stuff like price indices for medical services, world food prices, aggregate steel production, measures of industry concentration in the wholesale corn market etc."
Never did I say anything about bombarding anyone or price indices. My logic is that media should give a more equal representation to major industry events like M&As, especially when two such events occur on the same day. I would not argue this if the acquired company was some Tubmlr sized biotech firm with a drug in trials, but this is a merger between two pharmaceutical manufacturers that outsize Tumblr in almost every statistic (users, revenue, employees, etc.) by 1-3 orders of magnitude.
Oh and most people know nothing about pharma, just like they know little about what goes on in the background of their favorite sites in Silicon Valley, especially with acquisitions where integration takes a while and the public gets bored and forgets the event even happened.
We use and interact with Tumblr, know about it's features, and understand the history of the new owner.
I am confident the totality of online readers of Tumblr articles interact with the pharmaceuticals made by these two companies more than they interact with Tumblr.
How so? Most people who use Tumblr daily are under 30. Do people under 30 interact with pharma daily in the US? Why? Anti-depression meds come to mind, but why when you have tumblr?
The purchase of Tumblr by Yahoo is far more relevant to the majority of readers than Warner Chilcott.
I agree that the Tumblr news at least seems more important to a lot of people, and I'll add that perception is not always reality. Just because we've all heard of Tumblr and maybe even use Tumblr, doesn't actually mean that Tumblr is particularly important.
But isn't medical topics even less relevant for me today?
I'm 28, so if everything goes right I have 20 to 30 years before I'll need any kind of life saving from medicine. And in 20-30 years the landscape might be very different, so for me medical topics are not of any importance at all.
Unless they let me to grow hair or teeth; or customise my body and mind.
WRONG. Medical topics are more relevant for you today than have ever been before. The best medicine is preventative medicine and if you start a proactive approach now, you'll live longer. Not by waiting until you get a disease and then trying to figure out how to cure it using the latest technology. You could have a genetic mutation in the next five minutes, the more you know, the better prepared and proactive you'll be.
Healthcare has never been more important than it is today for all walks of life.
I'm sorry, but that was one of the most mind-blowing comments I've read on HN.
But I really don't want to spend any time today on using medical devices (that's the acquired company does, right?)
The probability of me having a genetic mutation is low given no family history.
I don't see the point of being old for so long it takes half of your life. I want to live my life and then be done with it at the age of 70, perhaps? Unless they find a way to make youth longer. Not even middle age - youth.
Healthcare may be important (especially for our economy), but if you believe that the average 20-something needs to be popping pills as preventative medicine, then you have been completely brainwashed by big-pharma advertising.
Exactly. The fact that that "majority" of "readers" in the US care more about Tumblr means nothing, Tumblr is the farthest away from important when it comes to technology, innovation, and I'll even say communication. It's just another stupid SV deal that guaranteed early investors and VC in Tumblr a nice exit before the wheels fell off that company. Yahoo! has cash and they use it in whatever ways they want.
I'll agree with OP that Yahoo is more relevant to the masses, but we all know the masses are constantly up for Darwin Awards.
