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Despite delays , the plan to tie Tumblr ’s blogging site to the wider world of decentralized social media , also know as the “ fediverse , ” is still on , it seems . Over a year ago , Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg — whose companyacquired Tumblr from Verizon in 2019 — posted on Twitter that the sitewould “ before long ” bestow sustenance for ActivityPub , the communications protocol power Twitter / X rival Mastodon and other decentralised societal apps . But as time lapsed since that pronouncement , it was n’t percipient if Tumblr was still moving in that way .
To rarify matter further , Tumblrrecently cut a number of stave , relocating many to other projects within its parent companyAutomattic , which run WordPress.com , WooCommerce , Pocket Casts and more , include therecently acquired Texts.com . The re - org was meant to ease the financial pressures Tumblr has been under , as the sitecontinued to lose money . But it also led many fediverse advocates to marvel if Tumblr ’s plans to unite the world of decentralized societal medium had also been altercate .
In increase , a post by a Tumblr employeeseemed to indicate the projection was now on the back burner as they said the fediverse plan had been moved to Tumblr ’s examination grounds , Tumblr Labs .
Now , CEO Matt Mullenweg is clearing up the status of Tumblr ’s fediverse ambitions in an AMA ( Ask Me Anything ) share on his own Tumblr web log . Inresponseto a question from TechCrunch , Mullenweg explained that despite the re - org , which will see many Tumblr employees move to other projects at the terminal of the yr , Automattic did change over someone over to Tumblr to work on the fediverse integration , which will continue in the raw year . ( afterwards , inremarks madeat the State of the World , issue , he touch to a “ team ” that would be working on fediverse explorations at Tumblr ) .
Still , Mullenweg cautioned that , so far , Automattic had n’t yet seen outsize user need for federated social media .
“ TheActivity PubandFriendsplugins for WordPress are both from Automatticians , and have allowed us space to play in this space and understand the community and protocol , and also gauge user demand , ” Mullenweg write . “ Right now both have under ten thousand users , so there has n’t been a expectant user push for this yet , ” he noted .
But he said that folks will “ dig out into Tumblr ’s codebase ” to see what it can do about moving forward with federation .
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Reading between the lines , it seems the company is n’t quick to place a full wager on ActivityPub — though Mullenweg broadly supports a more open cyberspace .
“ I remain a huge truster in opened standards and user freedom , though I do n’t claim to have the trueness on which particular standard is better or best , to serve our customers we will support everything we can in good organized religion to give user more freedom , alternative , and avoid lock chamber - in , ” he also said in his AMA . ( Mullenweg narrate us earlier in the year the company was also appraise other protocol , like Bluesky ’s AT Protocol and nostr , for what it ’s worth ) .
Though Mastodon today only has around1.5 million monthly participating users , ActivityPub is seeing more momentum as of late — specially now that Instagram Threads , another Twitter / X competitor , ispledging integration with the fediverse . Many in the community bear that to arrive in the early part of 2024 . In the meantime , Threads usersare capable to verify their visibility on Mastodon as an initial footfall . Other startup , like the Mozilla - backed appMammothand indie apps likeIvory , have also launch to make the fediverse more approachable for newcomers , while caller likeFlipboardandMediumhave adopt Mastodon , too . That could give Tumblr a take push in 2024 to fix if ActivityPub is worth its time , and whether or not it will make technological sentiency to bring Tumblr blogs to Mastodon .
In other parole , even though there ’s work being done on Tumblr ’s fediverse integrating , it ’s far from being a done slew at this time .
In another AMAresponse , Mullunweg also notice that a larger effort to transmigrate Tumblr ’s half a billion blogs to WordPress on the backend is something he ’s also contemplating in the fresh year .
“ We will tackle it , but I ’m not certain when , ” the White House pronounce .
