Tumblr CEO David Karp is stepping down from the company • Hacker News Board

Re: Tumblr CEO David Karp is stepping down from the company

#11

Post by adventured » Mon, Nov 27, 2017, 9:09 PM UTC

adammck wrote: post #3

QAPereo wrote: post #2

https://medium.com/@somospostpc/tumblr-is-tumbling-d6deb3bb8... Seems like this might have something to do with it.

Wow, that New Posts chart is brutal. This nearby link[1] seems to claim that Yahoo failed to "not screw it up", but the details are extremely vague. I'm unclear what could have caused such a dramatic reversal. ~Everyone left, but why? What changed? [1] https://qz.com/735583/

There is now a better way to do what Tumblr was trying to do. Their stated mission was basically to dramatically simplify expression.

Young people hate writing very much text.

Young people hate using posting interfaces of the sort Tumblr utilizes (it still comes across as a CMS posting system).

Young people hate too much effort toward customization, which is required to make a Tumblr page look half decent.

Enter Snapchat, WhatsApp, Kik, Viber, Instagram etc.

Click, record video, send.

Click, snap, add four words, send.

No layout customization bullshit. No concerns about something on your page breaking by mistake and having no idea how to fix it to get it back to normal. No diary/journal or blog text aspect, which most people have zero interest in.

It's too useful for what its newer users want (the ones that would be signing up and providing growth).

Simply put, Tumblr is a dinosaur. It happened that fast.

Re: Tumblr CEO David Karp is stepping down from the company

#12

Post by kryptiskt » Mon, Nov 27, 2017, 9:18 PM UTC

B1FF_PSUVM wrote: post #10

tedmiston wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yahoo has written down $712 million of the original $990 million that it paid for Tumblr Brutal

I take it you didn't see the MS write down of Nokia mobile phones. Over ten times that, 7.6 billion USD: https://www.theverge.com/2015/7/8/8910999/microsoft-job-cuts... Worse than brutal, a shame. And Windows Phone 8.1 was actually a good platform. I'm back on iOS, and it feels like being kicked back to the 20th century.

HP had to take a write down of $8.8B after their Autonomy acquisition.

Re: Tumblr CEO David Karp is stepping down from the company

#13

Post by yesiamyourdad » Mon, Nov 27, 2017, 9:29 PM UTC

adventured wrote: post #11

adammck wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, that New Posts chart is brutal. This nearby link[1] seems to claim that Yahoo failed to "not screw it up", but the details are extremely vague. I'm unclear what could have caused such a dramatic reversal. ~Everyone left, but why? What changed? [1] https://qz.com/735583/

There is now a better way to do what Tumblr was trying to do. Their stated mission was basically to dramatically simplify expression. Young people hate writing very much text. Young people hate using posting interfaces of the sort Tumblr utilizes (it still comes across as a CMS posting system). Young people hate too much effort toward customization, which is required to make a Tumblr page look half decent. Enter Snap…

That's what I was going to say but better and more detailed. I think most of Tumblr's core has migrated to IG, Snapchat, and some of those others I'm not hip to. I always saw Tumblr as a simplified MySpace but it had much of that same appeal - you could customize your templates and basically turn it into a teenager's room covered with posters and crap if that's what you wanted. On mobile all that is wasted - what looks impressive on desktop gets lost on mobile. So they're going the way of MySpace now.

Re: Tumblr CEO David Karp is stepping down from the company

#14

Post by praisewhitey » Mon, Nov 27, 2017, 9:37 PM UTC

adammck wrote: post #3

QAPereo wrote: post #2

https://medium.com/@somospostpc/tumblr-is-tumbling-d6deb3bb8... Seems like this might have something to do with it.

Wow, that New Posts chart is brutal. This nearby link[1] seems to claim that Yahoo failed to "not screw it up", but the details are extremely vague. I'm unclear what could have caused such a dramatic reversal. ~Everyone left, but why? What changed? [1] https://qz.com/735583/

I can't speak to everyone, but my artist friends all moved to Instagram because it's a better place to post photos/videos, and the comment system is preferable.

Re: Tumblr CEO David Karp is stepping down from the company

#15

Post by manigandham » Mon, Nov 27, 2017, 9:47 PM UTC

WhatsApp, Instagram, Snapchat, etc. are the popular networks now.

Tumblr naturally declined regardless of Yahoo (which definitely failed at integrating its adtech and never made any money). That's how it goes with social networks, it's a cycle of latest and greatest, and the whims of the public can change in a few short years.

Re: Tumblr CEO David Karp is stepping down from the company

#16

Post by 1_2__4 » Mon, Nov 27, 2017, 9:59 PM UTC

manigandham wrote: post #15

WhatsApp, Instagram, Snapchat, etc. are the popular networks now. Tumblr naturally declined regardless of Yahoo (which definitely failed at integrating its adtech and never made any money). That's how it goes with social networks, it's a cycle of latest and greatest, and the whims of the public can change in a few short years.

None of those have adult communities in the rounding error of the scale Tumblr does.

Re: Tumblr CEO David Karp is stepping down from the company

#17

Post by manigandham » Mon, Nov 27, 2017, 10:01 PM UTC

1_2__4 wrote: post #16

manigandham wrote: post #15

WhatsApp, Instagram, Snapchat, etc. are the popular networks now. Tumblr naturally declined regardless of Yahoo (which definitely failed at integrating its adtech and never made any money). That's how it goes with social networks, it's a cycle of latest and greatest, and the whims of the public can change in a few short years.

None of those have adult communities in the rounding error of the scale Tumblr does.

...reddit does. Also the adult sites are building their own communities now, no need for a limited separate network.

Re: Tumblr CEO David Karp is stepping down from the company

#18

Post by rrdharan » Mon, Nov 27, 2017, 10:13 PM UTC

kryptiskt wrote: post #12

B1FF_PSUVM wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I take it you didn't see the MS write down of Nokia mobile phones. Over ten times that, 7.6 billion USD: https://www.theverge.com/2015/7/8/8910999/microsoft-job-cuts... Worse than brutal, a shame. And Windows Phone 8.1 was actually a good platform. I'm back on iOS, and it feels like being kicked back to the 20th century.

HP had to take a write down of $8.8B after their Autonomy acquisition.

... and Time Warner wrote down AOL by $45B.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB1043702683178461304

Re: Tumblr CEO David Karp is stepping down from the company

#19

Post by arkades » Mon, Nov 27, 2017, 10:22 PM UTC

QAPereo wrote: post #2

https://medium.com/@somospostpc/tumblr-is-tumbling-d6deb3bb8... Seems like this might have something to do with it.

That author keeps referring to the “end of their sigmoid curve.” It’s not a sigmoidal function; new accounts aren’t finite. If engagement took off again, they can have another log phase.

He’s just bandying about a technical jargon term to try and look mathematically insightful when he means to say “growth has slowed.” But that doesn’t sound fancy enough.

Re: Tumblr CEO David Karp is stepping down from the company

#20

Post by danso » Mon, Nov 27, 2017, 11:17 PM UTC

giobox wrote: post #9

Did anyone really think that with a Yahoo acquisition this would go any other way? Great for the original Tumblr team getting their probably deserved payday, not much else. I did love how Tumblr embraced the mess of custom styling etc they supported - was refreshing to visit a crowd driven site where everyone's profile isn't the same stale standard template.

I loved Tumblr. I was a casual user but not only was it fun for a time, it opened my eyes to how important details are in implementation. I mean in the sense that I thought Tumblr wouldn't be useful to me because I already had my own WordPress blog (and various Jekyll blogs), but Tumblr's opinionated refinements and limitations made for a substantially new content-creating experience. And it was something I could only grok by trying out Tumblr.

Didn't use it much after the Yahoo acquisition. Nothing relating to Yahoo, had just moved onto other things. But I don't know what blame to assign to Yahoo, other than the sin of not being more aggressive in trying to "do" something. But it's not clear that trying to aggressively iterate Tumblr would be better than being hands-off about it.

What would Tumblr be like if Yahoo hadn't acquired it? It was a great platform but I never got the sense -- in the way that I have with Instagram and Snapchat -- that Tumblr was capable of rapidly innovating while preserving the core experience.