Tumblr active users software#

In 2017, Verizon Media acquired Yahoo, Meyer stepped down, and COO Jeff D'Onofrio replaced Karp as Tumblr's CEO. Credit: WayBack Machineīy 2016, Yahoo slashed Tumblr's value by more than half, citing its failure to meet sales goals. homepage on March 6, 2007, less than a month after the site's launch. The Tumblr team began to see the first instances of what would soon become a pattern: leadership's push for flashy gains that betrayed a crucial misunderstanding that what makes Tumblr unique are the online communities it fosters. And while Tumblr tinkered, competitors like Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook developed new front-end features to draw users in. We spent a lot of time working on instead of thinking about what could really benefit the users,' says Christian. Internal sentiment around the acquisition was initially positive and 'culturally, it wasn't a bad fit,' but Karp's nimble fingers had built Tumblr on a foundation too small and shaky to support millions of blogs.Īs the team began rebuilding for scale, Yahoo leadership 'were really pushing us to get on a lot of their systems and integrate more tightly without really understanding why we built things a certain way Tumblr-specific around our legacy model. Jack Christian (his name has been changed at his request for anonymity) joined Tumblr’s engineering team just after the Yahoo acquisition. Credit: DON EMMERT/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES A brief history of Tumblr's acquisitions I spoke with former employees and users to understand how a whirlwind of acquisitions, integrations, and wasted energy left Tumblr wading in a pool of uncertainty - and how the site so many loved might find itself again.ĭavid Karp at Tumblr HQ in February 2012. A recent New Yorker piece called it ' popular for being obsolete.' And while I know Tumblr users don't give a damn about relevance, I still believe in Tumblr and the possibility it holds for a new generation. Somehow, they did, and Tumblr has never recovered.Īs someone who drank in Tumblr’s ambrosia from 2010 to 2015, it’s pained me to watch its prospects dry up. 'Tumblr is redefining creative expression online,' then Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer said, calling it 'the internet's fastest-growing media frenzy.' A press release promised 'not to screw it up.' By 2013, the site was acquired by Yahoo for more than $1 billion, in what some saw as a gamble. During a time when longer-form blogging on platforms like Blogger and WordPress dominated, Tumblr offered a short-form, multimedia-rich experience that drew in millions.

Tumblr active users software#

The microblogging site that launched a thousand ships was created by software consultant David Karp in 2007.

If you can believe it, Tumblr turned 15 this month.