Verizon Sells Tumblr to WordPress Owner

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon (2018) First Impressions

Tumblr is getting a new owner. Once again.

The service was originally owned by Yahoo, and it was later purchased by Verizon for a whopping $1 billion in 2017. And now, Verizon is also done with Tumblr, meaning it’s getting a new owner: Automattic.

Windows Intelligence In Your Inbox

Sign up for our new free newsletter to get three time-saving tips each Friday — and get free copies of Paul Thurrott's Windows 11 and Windows 10 Field Guides (normally $9.99) as a special welcome gift!

"*" indicates required fields

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Automattic, for those unfamiliar, is the owner of WordPress.com. Automattic also plays a major role in maintaining WordPress.org, which is the free, open-source version of WordPress that’s widely used by many websites on the internet to this date.

Wall Street Journal reports that Automattic has purchased Tumblr off Verizon for an undisclosed sum. 200 Tumblr staffers will be joining Automattic as part of the acquisition. Verizon actually started seeking a buyer for the service earlier this year, and Automattic was one of the interested customers, along with…PornHub.

Here’s the thing: Tumblr has a ton of safe-for-work blogs, but a lot of the userbase for the service was made of users that solely used the service for enjoying adult content. When Verizon purchased Tumblr in 2017, the company introduced an adult content ban on Tumblr, leading to a huge backlash from users.

And although PornHub showing interest in Tumblr earlier this year led to some new hope for Tumblr users, the latest acquisition of Tumblr will break all those dreams. Automattic said the company plans to continue the adult content policy.

Tagged with

Share post

Please check our Community Guidelines before commenting

Conversation 3 comments

  • jimchamplin

    Premium Member
    12 August, 2019 - 5:05 pm

    <p>There's one constant in the universe: Bureaucracy. And if there's one thing bureaucrats hate, it's personality. Most of the "adult" material that was affected were the online portfolios of photographers and models for whom that webspace was an important part of their income.</p><p><br></p><p>Of course a bureaucrat can't see a difference in that and exploitation and sex trafficking.</p>

  • skane2600

    12 August, 2019 - 5:35 pm

    <p>I remember when the technology industry was about expanding potential. Now it's just ho-hum technology applied to an advertising strategy.</p>

  • Daekar

    13 August, 2019 - 6:31 am

    <p>I never understood why they dropped the adult content. It's a legitimate industry that is totally recession-proof, will only ever increase in demand, and the content library is more or less always relevant if you encourage your models to make style decisions which aren't too trendy. Idiots.</p>

Windows Intelligence In Your Inbox

Sign up for our new free newsletter to get three time-saving tips each Friday

"*" indicates required fields

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Thurrott © 2024 Thurrott LLC