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Tumblr CEO David Karp is stepping down from the company

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

#41

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.

> And Windows Phone 8.1 was actually a good platform.

Also, Nokia was a world leader. Imagine what all that manufacturing and design capability could have accomplished. Sad waste.

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

#42
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…

I actually disagree strongly with this analysis, and I want to detail some stuff here.

Tumblr was something that artists and fandoms took pride in putting time into. The grassroots were always the holder of the users despite everything mentioned here, even in 2010 and earlier. XKit tried its best to cater to the fans, but it felt as if it was being fought every step of the way by Tumblr itself. They had the power users that drove it, they will for some time still too, but again and again, they ignored the needs of their users, and the terribly broken comment system barely got a marginal fix just recently (past year?), which is still broken on individual blogs often. Blogs often got deleted for unknown reasons without warning and tons of users lost years of content and conglomeration of information.

I don't see Tumblr being in the same category as any of those you listed really except for maybe Instagram, where more professional artists are thriving. The culture was always the glue of Tumblr, and none of those services have it.

The CMS posting style was fine. The customization was great, and while retro, suited the community. There are tons of great text posts and educational content that was immensely helpful towards LGBT youth, sexual discovery, getting real history lessons to supplement the broken US high school history classes, art, music, fandoms, and so much more. Lots of it is still there even today. But it's a fringe community with very little marketing or ad value and a community that hates corporations more than any other group I can think of. There was never a path to monetization. I'm just sad to see it be killed through neglect of its true potential and actively pushing away users it felt like. I think its creator took a few wrong steps but in the end, realized there wasn't anything he could do with it and is hence moving on.

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

#43

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.

I don't know if it's only that. I stopped using Tumblr when Yahoo bought it, and actively deleted or abandoned my Tumblr sites when Verizon bought it.

You do understand that only a very small minority would have done that, right? This kind of behavior is irrelevant in the decline of tumblr.

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

#44

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.

I don't know if it's only that. I stopped using Tumblr when Yahoo bought it, and actively deleted or abandoned my Tumblr sites when Verizon bought it.

Why?

How many people on Tumblr really care that Yahoo or Verizon owns it?

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

#45

I would too tumblr's day has passed. Marissa made a huge mistake betting on tumblr. The pornography and toxic community killed what could have been a strong twitter microblog service.

I get the pornography part, whenever you are checking a simple site it can happen that there is NSFW stuff visible without a warning. However, toxic community? I never had that impression. That said I never used Tumblr for longer periods and I don't get how to comment on stuff or really interact there.

Tumblr has an indeed very toxic community at times.

Several creators of fanart I enjoy have been bullied of the platform, even receiving death threats if they don't leave for minor incidents or one time even a completely made up reason.

There are still some creators there but I do hope they move to better places in time.

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

#46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't speak for OP but Tumblr has a pretty big SJW subculture; screenshots from more esoteric or radical discussions get some ridicule on reddit and elsewhere. Check (the equally toxic) subreddit tumblrinaction for a sample of this type of content. I can't tell you how representative that is of the whole site though as I am also not a tumblr user.

I'd like to point out that you're referencing hand picked, extreme examples of a community. There's a massive bias. You have no way of knowing what Tumblr is like based on these examples.

From my experience, TIA is rather representative once you remove the various art blogs and their reblogs.

As I've stated in another comment, several creators I enjoy have been massively bullied by wider communities on Tumblr until they left.

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

#47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if it's only that. I stopped using Tumblr when Yahoo bought it, and actively deleted or abandoned my Tumblr sites when Verizon bought it.

You do understand that only a very small minority would have done that, right? This kind of behavior is irrelevant in the decline of tumblr.

"...imports from Tumblr to WordPress rose from the typical rate of 400-600 per hour to over 72,000...Posterous users fled the service when it was purchased by Twitter, and Instagram users were up in arms over its acquisition by Facebook."

(I also quit Instagram when Facebook bought it.)

https://www.theverge.com/2013/5/20/4347730/yahoo-tumblr-acqu...

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

#48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if it's only that. I stopped using Tumblr when Yahoo bought it, and actively deleted or abandoned my Tumblr sites when Verizon bought it.

Why? How many people on Tumblr really care that Yahoo or Verizon owns it?

Probably a lot. See my other comment in this thread. Once the core users and thought leaders depart, all that is left is a zombie.

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

#49
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/

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.

As an artist, yeah. I have a pretty big tumblr following that I've built up over the years, but I also prefer instagram even though I've only had it for a little over a year and haven't built up nearly as big of a base. I think for me it's that instagram feels more for the everyman, in a way. Plenty of grandparents out there with instagrams full of their grandkids, y'know? You reach a much broader audience.
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