Tumblr took the best of what Projectionist and anarchaia had to offer and combined it in one platform: anarchaia’s simplicity met Projectionist’s design appeal.
But what Tumblr did most importantly was bring the tumblelog to the masses. Karp, who at the time was sharing an office space on New York’s Park Avenue provided by studio owner Fred Seibert, allowed users to register their own Tumblr URL, customize their blog, and easily share videos, text, and GIFs. Tumblr marketed itself as a home for artists and paid homage to Projectionist on its FAQ page.
Anarchaia (though the creator now is active at another tumblelog site — Trivium) and Projectionist were the impetus behind me eagerly jumping aboard Tumblr back in 2007 (I believe I am Tumblr user #752).
There also was a link blog (cannot recall precisely but think that the blogger moved on to work with Al Franken or some other liberal webzine in the pre HuffPost era) that inspired, though it was entirely textual as opposed to the multi-variate post types supported by Tumblr.
And now after ingesting this Tumblr trivia moment I shall return you to the normal stream of numinous posts…
Be sure to check out this article. It’s super-interesting.
One thought I had after reading this last night that’s relevant here:
Creating something great doesn’t make you original usually. Mostly, it makes you inspired. That inspiration has a source.
— Ernie Smith (@ShortFormErnie) May 24, 2013
Also, the article doesn’t mention it, but the person who came up with the term “tumblelog” was why the lucky stiff, an important early figure in the Ruby on Rails community.
richardselby asks: don't you think there's gonna be a great deal of contention between companies with er... unscrupulous labor practices using Tumblr as an ad platform and the large and vocal social justice community on the site?
» SFB says: Newspapers cover the social justice community too, and sometimes they run ads from companies whose interests don’t match their own. That doesn’t mean it affects the content being created. It’s what folks in the newspaper business call a “church and state” thing. I’d recommend everyone take a wait-and-see approach. If it turns out we get an ad like this Atlantic ad, then we should probably complain. — Ernie @ SFB
Tumblr’s new ad sales pitch deck: “Brands finally are front and center.”
Your take, people of Tumblr?
In this week’s Newsweek, a little something about Yahoo & Tumblr’s marriage. And a request: “Please don’t mess with any of our favorite Tumblrs, like the beauties below.”
- BEST TUMBLR FOR BREAKING NEWS: SHORTFORMBLOG
- MOST LOL-WORTHY ANIMAL TUMBLR: CATS THAT LOOK LIKE RON SWANSON
- BEST CROWDSOURCED TECH TUMBLR: THE INTERNET WISHLIST
- MOST CHARMING VINTAGE-Y TUMBLR: QUESTIONABLE ADVICE AND ADVERTISEMENTS
- MOST STIMULATING ART-AND-DESIGN TUMBLR: HELLO YOU CREATIVES
- MOST GORGEOUS PHOTOGRAPHY TUMBLR: FOTOJOURNALISMUS
- TRAVEL TUMBLR THAT’S ALMOST AS GOOD AS AN ACTUAL TRIP: THE TRAVEL NETWORK
- MOST POP-CULTURE-SAVVY FASHION TUMBLR: TEXTBOOK
- BEST BOYFRIEND TUMBLR: YOUR LL BEAN BOYFRIEND
Congrats everyone! Now go follow those tumblrs and get them up in yo’ dashboard. Sorry about the caps, btw, we copy/pasted straight from the website and did we feel like going through and rewriting these headilnes? No we did not. We are too busy applauding. Click through though to see what we wrote about each winner.
Here’s the full list, which we’re proud to be a part of. :)
Tumblr’s employees will also do well. The company’s first 10 employees will receive an average of $6.2 million in cash; the first 30 will receive an average of $3.3 million in cash, and the rest of the 178 employees will each receive $371,000.
However, in a comment on Hacker News, Union Square’s principal, Fred Wilson, calls the numbers offered by PrivCo ”total garbage.” “There is not one fact in this privco thing that is close to right,” he continues. “The numbers are good but nowhere close to that good. This is the same firm that predicted Foursquare would be out of business this year which will also prove to be nonsense.”
Watch: PCB gets a visual shout out on GMA’s Yahoo/Tumblr report
At the 41 second mark!
Congrats to PCB, and that interview had painfully obvious talking points. Stephanopoulos called Karp a hipster, leading to awkwardness all around.
13% of internet users ages 18-29 use Tumblr.
Compare Tumblr user demographics to other social networking sites: http://pewrsr.ch/VBAYby
Hey Pew, can you break this down into Dr. Who fans vs. Arrested Development fans for us, and see where the audiences overlap? Thanks.
Buying Tumblr is a big enough deal for Yahoo that they clearly aren’t intending to ruin it or shut it down — like YouTube and Google, Tumblr will probably become an extremely important part of Yahoo indefinitely. And I believe they’ll do a good job with it. Yahoo today is a very different company than the Yahoo that neglected Flickr for years — it has extremely competent new leadership making bold changes. (Including fixing Flickr.)
More importantly, it gives David, and the rest of Tumblr’s team, the freedom to continue making the best product they can while offloading a lot of the grunt work to Yahoo’s leadership, staff, and infrastructure.
As for me, while I wasn’t a “founder” financially, David was generous with my employee stock options back in the day. I won’t make yacht-and-helicopter money from the acquisition, and I won’t be switching to dedicated day and night iPhones. But as long as I manage investments properly and don’t spend recklessly, Tumblr has given my family a strong safety net and given me the freedom to work on whatever I want. And that’s exactly what I plan to do.
Side note: If you haven’t seen it yet, the new Flickr redesign is ace.
Yumblr? What Some Of Tumblr’s Best Bloggers Think About Yahoo’s $1.1 Billion Purchase
I’m quoted in this. — Ernie @ SFB
But seriously … I am not kidding.
I’m not watching all of...
Yahoo wants to buy Hulu now too. They’re going on an “I...
I’m moving back to New York in a few days. Unlike past...
OMG. I got so...
In this week’s Newsweek, a little...
Tumblr this morning. [h/t anne]
#@#$%!.tumblr.com
“The 24 Most Melodramatic Pieces Of Yahoo/Tumblr Fanart” should be enough to make you question if you’re really that angry about this buyout, when you see how many people are far angrier than you.
I’m joking around about Tumblr and Yahoo a lot right now, but that’s because making people laugh is my favorite thing. For those who care to hear it, I’ll be clear: let’s give ‘em a chance.
Yahoo lost its way a while ago, but Marissa Mayer has done some good stuff to right the ship in the 10 (yep, only 10) months she’s been there. Yahoo stated that Tumblr will be run as an independent company anyway, so we probably won’t see much “oh no everything’s purple and I have to dust off my Yahoo account” change. The change we do see could very well be great, considering Tumblr’s independence and Yahoo’s crazy resources.
Change isn’t inherently bad, but fearing it is. I’m eager to see where this goes.
This, basically.
I’m delighted to announce that we’ve reached an agreement to acquire Tumblr!
We promise not to screw it up. Tumblr is incredibly special and has a great thing going. We will operate Tumblr independently. David Karp will remain CEO. The product roadmap, their team, their wit and…
Note to Yahoo: If you post images in text posts, they don’t look as good on the dashboard as straight-up image posts. You guys are new here, so we’ll give you some time to get used to things.
Everyone, I’m elated to tell you that Tumblr will be joining Yahoo.
Before touching on how awesome this is, let me try to allay any concerns: We’re not turning purple. Our headquarters isn’t moving. Our team isn’t changing. Our roadmap isn’t changing. And our mission – to empower creators to make their best work and get it in front of the audience they deserve – certainly isn’t changing.
So what’s new? Simply, Tumblr gets better faster. The work ahead of us remains the same – and we still have a long way to go! – but with more resources to draw from.
Yahoo is the original Internet company, and Marissa and her team share our dream to make the Internet the ultimate creative canvas. I couldn’t be more excited to have her help. We also share a vision for Tumblr’s business that doesn’t compromise the community and product we love. Plus both our logos end with punctuation!
As always, everything that Tumblr is, we owe to this unbelievable community. We won’t let you down.
Fuck yeah,
David
“Fuck yeah.” — David Karp
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