While it may be too early to tell how Tumblr users will ultimately respond to Yahoo’s $1.1 billion acquisition, we’re seeing signs that they’re jumping to other blogging services.
Matt Mullenwag, CEO of WordPress parent company Automattic, points out his service saw more than 72,000 imported posts from Tumblr in one hour on Sunday night, following the hoopla around Tumblr’s acquisition. Typically, WordPress sees around 400 to 600 imported posts from Tumblr every hour, he said.
The massive import increase is a sign that more astute Tumblr users would rather have their blogs on an independent service than on one owned by a giant (and honestly, not that cool) company. But by leaving the Tumblr platform, they’re also leaving behind Tumblr’s social benefits, like its simple ability to “like” and reblog other Tumblr posts. (WordPress now allows similar social features, but they were initially popularized by Tumblr’s tiny blogs.)
“News like this, whether from a friend or a competitor, is always bittersweet: I’m curious to see what the creative folks behind Tumblr do with their new resources, both personal and corporate, but I’m more interested to know what they would have done over the next 5-10 years as an independent company,” Mullenwag wrote on his blog. “I think we’re at the cusp of understanding the ultimate value of web publishing platforms, particularly ones that work cross-domain, and while Yahoo’s all-cash deal by some metrics, like revenue, is very generous, I think it’s a tenth of the value that will be created in these platforms over the coming years.”
Photo: Peregrino Will Reign/Flickr
VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact. Learn More
