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Verizon to Sell Tumblr to Automattic

wsj.com

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Re: Verizon to Sell Tumblr to Automattic

#341

Post by sverhagen »

ridaj wrote: post #307
djsumdog wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The future needs to be distributed. Less Tumblr/Facebook/Twitter and more ActivityPub/Mastodon/Pleroma/Pixefed .. when people get use to federated networks, they'll understand how they work. They'll understand how it's like hosting your own game server, and everyone can do it, and you can ban servers you don't like without having those servers really go away to anyone but you. The future is not centralized. The futur…

I want to believe that the future is decentralized but I'm convinced of the opposite when it comes to online media, primarily because spam, abuse and content moderation are expensive functions to perform in which there are strong scale effects, and they are critical not just to ad-based monetization but perhaps also to broad societal acceptance of technology.

Maybe they mean, "a better future _would_ be distributed"...

Re: Verizon to Sell Tumblr to Automattic

#342

Post by 9nGQluzmnq3M »

no_wizard wrote: post #199

I know there are a lot of nay sayers in this thread about the viability of this acquistion but consider this: > Even still, Matt says Tumblr’s user base is, “several times larger than [WordPress.com].” I don't know what Automattic paid exactly, but the story speculates that: > Dan Primack of Axios is reporting a “source familiar” put the price, “well south of $20 million.” So even if Tumblr is plateaued or declining…

Why are you comparing the cost of a single month against a one-off purchase price? I have no idea what Tumblr's churn rate is, but if they can hold onto that $5/mo user for a year, they only need 333k to make back $20m -- or 50,000 to make back $3m.

Re: Verizon to Sell Tumblr to Automattic

#343

Post by mijamo »

asdff wrote: post #328
brettz wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is still massive stigma around consuming porn. Less than half of Americans think that watching porn is morally acceptable. https://news.gallup.com/poll/235280/americans-say-pornograph... Brands don't want to be next to content that has that stigma.

The people with that stigma aren't going to be looking at that content anyway.

Oh yeah, nobody would do something they say is immoral, especially when it comes to sex.

Re: Verizon to Sell Tumblr to Automattic

#344

Post by duncanawoods »

kill_nate_kill wrote: post #298
photomatt wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an excellent question! I don't want to be so presumptuous as to define an exact approach before the technical exploration has started, besides saying it'll be done incrementally and in an easily revertable way to be invisible to users, just like the big datacenter migration Automattic just completed a few weeks ago. At the point when we start this the Tumblr team will have been part of Automattic for the bette…

You should almost make it a documentary.

Yes! I’d pay more for real world business documentaries than anything on netflix.

Re: Verizon to Sell Tumblr to Automattic

#345

Post by Freak_NL »

mises wrote: post #271
gbear605 wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple specifically removed it for child porn, and once Tumblr took care of that (before removing adult content in general), Apple added them back to the store.

The thing is, a naked 17-year-old and a naked 18-year-old look fairly similar. One is a felony; one is not. It would be evry difficult to distinguish between them. Apple probably wanted to head off the outrage which some person would drum up, and passed to tumbler. Tumbler figured it was easier to classify all inappropriate content, as there's no real way to classify something so fuzzy with the requisite accuracy.

Other porn sites with user contributed content exist. This is not as big a problem as you make it out to be. Not to the extent that a big company like Automattic wouldn't be able to solve it and keep that quite profitable interest group on board. The reason they won't is because they don't like to go against the grain of the currently advertiser-mandated vision of an exclusively family-friendly internet — where 'internet' here means the ad-supported part of it; i.e., all of the bigger commercial content silos.

The outrage comes when people stumble upon photos of minors in the early pubescent or even prepubescent stage of development intended to titillate. That is, content that is fairly consistently classed as child pornography, and no apparent action is undertaken to purge that content.

> […] as there's no real way to classify something so fuzzy with the requisite accuracy.

For the odd case where an account is uploading content that looks like it might involve a minor nearing adulthood, a platform privately and confidentially asking for proof of identity and age is reasonable enough. It's a fair solution for, to name just one example, the odd flat-chested twenty-something exhibitionist of Asian descent.

Re: Verizon to Sell Tumblr to Automattic

#346

Post by brettz »

asdff wrote: post #328
brettz wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is still massive stigma around consuming porn. Less than half of Americans think that watching porn is morally acceptable. https://news.gallup.com/poll/235280/americans-say-pornograph... Brands don't want to be next to content that has that stigma.

The people with that stigma aren't going to be looking at that content anyway.

They think it's immoral but they definitely still look at that content. For advertisers it's about brand perception and not appearing next to immoral content.

Re: Verizon to Sell Tumblr to Automattic

#347

Post by wyclif »

fwn wrote: post #321
wyclif wrote: post #245

I have a very old Tumblr account that I got locked out of (I forgot to update my email address, don't have access to the old domain email, and therefore can't reset. When I tried contacting Tumblr recently, they wouldn't help me even try anything at all to verify the account. Will Automattic allow me to get my old account back?

If you don't have access to your identifier, what should they do about it? Social engineering is a surprisingly large attack vector. I'd be concerned if it were possible to gain control over an account this way.

Not necessarily true. I understand what you mean but there are other ways to identify and verify an account. In fact, I had an account with one other company where I forgot to update my email address and they were able to verify me.

Re: Verizon to Sell Tumblr to Automattic

#348

Post by echelon »

duncanawoods wrote: post #344
kill_nate_kill wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should almost make it a documentary.

Yes! I’d pay more for real world business documentaries than anything on netflix.

Please actually do this.

Find a way to get Verizon to sign off on this, and then get in touch with an established documentary maker. Pair them with an engineer and follow the story of the migration efforts. It will take time, and it'll certainly have a narrative.

Nothing like this has been done before. I struggle with making what I do relatable to people, but having a technical or semi-technical documentary following this large project would be eye-opening.

We'll even crowd fund this if you give us the chance. I'm not kidding.

Please, please, please make this migration a documentary film.

Re: Verizon to Sell Tumblr to Automattic

#349

Post by Freak_NL »

asdff wrote: post #328
brettz wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is still massive stigma around consuming porn. Less than half of Americans think that watching porn is morally acceptable. https://news.gallup.com/poll/235280/americans-say-pornograph... Brands don't want to be next to content that has that stigma.

The people with that stigma aren't going to be looking at that content anyway.

No, but they will gladly indulge in a bit of pitchfork-and-torchery when someone shares a screenshot on Facebook of a Proctor & Gamble ad for baby powder next to a young woman with pigtails and tube socks in the questionably named 'teen' category getting spit roasted.

Re: Verizon to Sell Tumblr to Automattic

#350

Post by echelon »

tptacek wrote: post #185
fooey wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They only paid $20 million. Buying a brand name and some domain relevant developers for that little is probably a good deal.

They paid something closer to $3MM according to Dan Primack (but also took on the employee payroll).

What a steal!

Talent, a brand, and eyeballs. Even if the ship can't be turned around in the end, presumably all the new hires are top notch.

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