What’s the future of advertising on Tumblr? In other responses, Mullenweg appeared to be considering how to support Tumblr via ads in different ways. (And the person running it doesn’t want to anymore, Mullenweg noted.) While the virtual goods and subscriptions will continue, Tumblr will likely have to “scale back the physical stuff” as it was only profitable on a small scale. He mentioned, too, some changes ahead for TumblrMart. In response to another question, Mullenweg suggested that Tumblr users could gift subscriptions, ask people to subscribe and be supportive of advertisers and brands that are supporting Tumblr. What’s more, he said the Tumblr Supporter badge hasn’t been very successful on its own, with only 2,300 total subscribers to that product. Then, “we could run the site forever,” he shared. If 10-20% subscribed, Tumblr would be in good shape, Mullenweg noted. However, out of Tumblr’s 11.5 million monthly active users, only 27,000 are subscribers (0.2%). Subscribing on the web instead of in-app allows Tumblr to keep more of the revenue as it doesn’t have to pay app store commissions. Users can choose from either the Tumblr Supporter badge for $29.99/year or $2.99/month or subscribe to a similarly priced ad-free offering. Tumblr today offers a subscription which is currently the best way to support the site, Mullenweg said. The WordPress exec said a successful version of Tumblr would see it becoming a place that “everyone goes to hang out online” with a “billion micro-communities.” He didn’t share specifics, like how much money that would require, though. Mullenweg confirmed that translation and localization will continue, and are not impacted by the changes. Will Tumblr’s localization plans be impacted by the staff changes? In other words, some people were laid off but it wasn’t because of Tumblr’s financial woes. “Automattic is continuously hiring and firing people to try to create the best open web tech team in the world,” he wrote. Mullenweg admitted that the company, like many, does engage in performance management reviews and sometimes that means people are let go. Why were some people laid off without being reassigned? Org, Applied AI, Texts, self-serve advertising (Blaze), Newspack, Pressable and Gravatar. Tumblr staff being reassigned will be able to choose from the following: WP.com, WooCommerce, Jetpack, Day One, Pocket Casts, WP VIP. The move was not a surprise, he added - the Tumblr team has known for over a year that if it couldn’t get the revenue up, some of them would have to work on other things that make the company money. The team impacted is known as “Bumblr,” which is the internal name for the product side of Tumblr. He said the team will be presented with other projects at Automattic and will be able to rank their top three picks, as staff is reassigned. Mullenweg said the changes to the Tumblr team will happen on December 31, 2023. That necessitated the re-org.īelow are some of the key takeaways from Mullenweg’s exchange with Tumblr users during the AMA, which shed light on what’s ahead for Tumblr in 2024 and beyond. Though the acquisition price was a steal - especially given Yahoo earlier bought it for over a billion dollars - the business itself is losing $30 million per year. TechCrunch’s Amanda Silberling broke the news of the Tumblr re-org, noting that 139 of the site’s workers would be moved to other projects at Automattic, the parent company to not only Tumblr and, but also WP VIP, Day One, Pocket Casts, WooCommerce and other apps and services, including the recently acquired all-in-one texting app .īut Mullenweg’s AMA offered a lot more insight into how the company plans to run Tumblr, the blogging site it picked up from Verizon for $3 million in 2019. Here, the exec responded to questions about Tumblr’s plans for existing products, like Tumblr Live, its monetization efforts, policies and its planned integration with the decentralized social networking protocol ActivityPub, which Mullenweg had earlier said was in the works. After acknowledging and explaining the meaning behind a leaked internal memo detailing the staff changes, Mullenweg then went on to field a number of questions about Tumblr’s future in an AMA (Ask Me Anything) session on his own Tumblr blog. This week, owner Matt Mullenweg confirmed his company would be shifting the majority of Tumblr’s workforce to other areas at parent company Automattic in light of the social blogging site’s continued financial woes.
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