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This hebdomad , WordPress.com owner Matt Mullenwegconfirmed his company would be shiftingthe absolute majority of Tumblr ’s workforce to other areas atparent company Automatticin light of the social blogging situation ’s continued financial woe . After recognize and explain the meaning behind a leak internal memo detailing the faculty changes , Mullenweg then went on to field a number of interrogative sentence about Tumblr ’s future in an AMA ( inquire Me Anything ) session onhis own Tumblr blog . Here , the exec respond to questions about Tumblr ’s plans for survive products , like Tumblr Live , its monetization effort , policies and its planned integration with the decentralised social networking protocol ActivityPub , which Mullenweg had earlier enunciate was in the works .
TechCrunch ’s Amanda Silberlingbroke the news of the Tumblr re - org , noting that 139 of the land site ’s workers would be be active to other projection atAutomattic , the parent ship’s company to not only Tumblr and WordPress.com , but also WP VIP , Day One , Pocket Casts , WooCommerce and other apps and services , including therecently acquired all - in - one texting app Texts.com .
But Mullenweg ’s AMA offered a lot more perceptiveness into how the companionship plans to bunk Tumblr , the blogging site it piece up from Verizonfor $ 3 million in 2019 . Though the acquisition damage was a steal — especiallygiven Yahoo sooner grease one’s palms it for over a billion dollars — the business itself islosing $ 30 million per year . That necessitated the re - org .
Below are some of the key takeaway from Mullenweg ’s interchange with Tumblr users during the AMA , which shed twinkle on what ’s ahead for Tumblr in 2024 and beyond .
When are the staff changes happening?
Mullenweg say the changes to the Tumblr team will happen on December 31 , 2023 . He say the team will be presented with other projection at Automattic and will be able to range their top three picks , as staff is reassigned . The squad impacted is known as “ Bumblr , ” which is the intimate name for the product side of Tumblr .
The move was not a surprise , he add — the Tumblr team has known for over a year that if it could n’t get the revenue up , some of them would have to work on other matter that make the ship’s company money .
Tumblr staff being reassigned will be capable to opt from the pursual : WP.com , WooCommerce , Jetpack , Day One , Pocket Casts , WP VIP , .Org , Applied AI , Texts , self - do advertizing ( Blaze ) , Newspack , Pressable and Gravatar .
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Why were some people laid off without being reassigned?
Mullenweg admitted that the company , like many , does engage in carrying out management reviews and sometimes that means multitude are let go .
“ Automattic is continuously hiring and firing citizenry to try out to create the skilful open entanglement tech team in the world , ” he wrote .
In other words , some peoplewerelaid off but it was n’t because of Tumblr ’s fiscal woes .
Will Tumblr’s localization plans be impacted by the staff changes?
Mullenweg substantiate that rendering and localization will go on , and are not impacted by the change .
What does success at Tumblr look like?
The WordPress White House said a successful rendering of Tumblr would see it becoming a billet that “ everyone goes to attend out online ” with a “ billion micro - communities . ” He did n’t deal specifics , like how much money that would want , though .
What are Tumblr’s monetization plans?
What ’s more , he said the Tumblr Supporter badge has n’t been very successful on its own , with only 2,300 total contributor to that intersection .
In response to another question , Mullenweg suggested that Tumblr drug user could invest subscription , ask masses to support and be supportive of advertisers and brands that are supporting Tumblr .
He mentioned , too , some change ahead for TumblrMart . While the virtual goodness and subscriptions will continue , Tumblr will likely have to “ descale back the physical stuff ” as it was only profitable on a small scale . ( And the person die hard it does n’t want to anymore , Mullenweg noted . )
In other responses , Mullenweg appeared to be considering how to plump for Tumblr via ads in unlike way .
What’s the future of advertising on Tumblr?
Mullenweg said the Brobdingnagian legal age of advertising revenue on Tumblr is from programmatic ads , due to a number of factors , include the website ’s decline traffic and various attacks on make running ad from Tumblr ’s substance abuser base . He added that ego - dish up ads with Blaze have “ fail well ” and that tooling can be re - used across Tumblr , WooCommerce and WordPress .
Still , he noted that Blaze and advertizing - free ’s adoption is so small they ca n’t back up Tumblr ’s some 1,000 servers or its employee salaries .
The exec added he ’s thinking about new shipway to grant adman to more easily duplicate campaigns they ’re head for the hills elsewhere with similar formats , which would raise the calibre of Tumblr ’s ads . This could be targeted at brands looking to move some percentage of their ad budget away from Twitter / X , for lesson .
Will Tumblr support moving blogs to WordPress.com?
Here , the White House was a moment vague on future plans , but said Tumblr today has a full exportation option available and WordPress can spell content . However , actually move Tumblr blogs to WordPress.com would be a “ tricky migration , ” Mullenweg said , but suggest that new technology like AI will make it easier .
How will Tumblr’s product change in 2024?
Mullenweg admitted the squad had been spread too thin and spent too much exertion on things that did n’t do work . In 2024 , the company will “ hone in on ” the parts of Tumblr citizenry have it off and put an end to the thing that do n’t work .
He hint that Tumblr will cover to innovate , as well , saying :
“ We ’ll uphold [ to ] stay on the haemorrhage edge of what applied science allows and enables , and hopefully leave pressure for other societal networks to step up their game , as they have with dozens of features Tumblr invented and others followed . ”
area of interest he cite were images , which he said were well-situated , but note teem gamy - res video would require to be pay ( but not expensive ) . He also noted that Automattic has some video technology it could lean on withVideoPress .
In terms of miss opportunities , Mullenweg lamented the demise of thePost+ creator subscription , which would have place all stock to creators without Tumblr take a cut . But misinformation about buff fic writers being process by copyright holders led to a co-ordinated flak crusade that led to every launch creator scratch the programme , he say .
“ It was sad , because this was a feature article users and creators aver they wanted , and we prioritized making users money over projection that would make us money , ” Mullenweg write .
Is Tumblr Live shutting down?
The exec suggest that Tumblr Live — a livestreaming video featurethat Tumblr users have n’t liked — could be on the chop block . He said that in 2024 Tumblr would “ streamline some of the surplus things that were launch ( like Live ) that have n’t induce the acceptance we hoped . ”
In responses to other questions , Mullenweg also said that Tumblr would “ sunset or rollback some things we adjudicate that did n’t work , ” and even in a flash stated that Live itself will be reassessed in January 2024 as to “ whether it should be a part of the Tumblr app anymore . ”
How Tumblr is dealing with trolls?
The troll question was a bit off - issue in price of Tumblr ’s time to come as a business enterprise , and alternatively spoke to the future of the situation ’s culture . Mullenweg said that he believes “ tiptop troll ” only account for less than 0.5 % of Tumblr ’s user foundation . Still , they can have an oversize impact , he admitted .
Despite the staff modification , the society plans to increase its investing in Trust & Safety — the team that deals with bot , trolling , attack and hate actor’s line — and will banish accounts engaging in these behaviors . It will also prevent those trolls from register new accounts and ingeminate their deportment , he said .
What’s going on with the ActivityPub integration for Tumblr?
Mullenweg announced a class ago thatTumblr would supply financial support for ActivityPub , the decentralized social networking protocol that supports apps like Twitter competitor Mastodon and others . But , apparently , that project has been put on the back burner . A Tumblr employee say it’snow something on the “ Tumblr Labs ” tilt and is being evaluated .
In the AMA , Mullenweg only vaguely brighten up the confusion over the state of the task by pronounce that :
“ Every future for Tumblr that I ’m involve in will let in it being more opened , supporting more banner , genus Apis and open source . ”
Will Tumblr un-ban porn?
Nope . fine art is earmark , but not “ hardcore clobber , ” Mullenweg said .
Tumblr to go on skeleton gang as parent company Automattic absorb staff
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