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Verizon reportedly seeking to sell Tumblr
- rahuldottech 8y agoNot surprising. I don't think Verizon "gets" Tumblr, or knows how to deal with it
- ralphstodomingo 8y agoDoes Verizon "get" anything at all, though? Haven't heard much of Oath either.
- partiallypro 8y agoTo be fair, Yahoo didn't "get" Tumblr either; they just more or less didn't try to do anything with it. Verizon tried to appeal to more advertisers...but completely shot themselves in the foot. I honestly don't see how it can be salvaged. There is a rumor that PornHub could buy it, but I'm not sure how that's possible. It will be interesting how cheap it is sold. Yahoo bought it for $1.1. Billion. I'm sure by now it's worth 1/4th of that.
- gizmo686 8y agoIt's not clear that Tumblr can be salvaged anymore. A name like pornhub could give confidence that Tumblr won't try another porn purge; at least to the people paying attention. But I suspect that the vast majority of users that left would simply be unaware of change of policy, let alone the change of ownership. And even if they were, the community is gone, and you can't just rebuild that.
- zimpenfish 8y ago> A name like pornhub could give confidence that Tumblr won't try another porn purge Not necessarily if the reason was (as people think) to avoid SESTA-FOSTA legal problems. Pornhub would still need to work around those restrictions and it might simply not be economical.
- jethro_tell 8y agoI would assume they already have that infrastructure in place? Seems like they are one of the few companies that would be poised to handle that from the get go.
- kenhwang 8y agoHow about selling Tumblr to where its community has seem to gone? Twitter. Gives Twitter a long format and a better platform for content.
- ilikehurdles 8y agoI don’t think they all went to one place. You say Twitter but my anecdotal impression was reddit.
- 1ris 8y agoMy anecdotal impression was 4chans anime boards.
- nickthegreek 8y agoI have some model and photographer friends who were big on Tumblr and they came to visit me a couple weeks ago. They ran popular tumblr blogs and are fully financed from their Patreons. Their said all their friends who's livelyhood depended on their reach switched to twitter from tumblr. I'm sure the small porn blogs or so just died or maybe went somewhere else. But twitter is where the bulk of the professionals took refuge.
- kristianc 8y ago
- Lowkeyloki 8y agoI was discussing companies who use Tumblr for official communication, like System76 and NPM, on another story earlier this week, and how it's cringy and not a good look IMHO. (My comment was flagged for some reason despite having 5 points and 8 replies. How does this site work?) I also heard the rumor that PornHub was interested in buying it. I hope they do! Can you imagine how quickly all the corporate blogs would scramble off of the platform to avoid association with a porn site!?
- tw04 8y agoStep 1: ban the thing the product you just bought makes all of its money from Step 2: ???? Step 3: sell it for a loss!
- hkmurakami 8y agoHey, tax write off.
- 1ris 8y agoMight as well literally burn cash for that - still not a good idea.
- jethro_tell 8y agocan you write off loss due to cash fire?
- weinzierl 8y agoThe KLF would approve[1]. EDIT: I looked it up because I wasn't sure about the details. Man, what a rabbit hole. There is even a Wikipedia page about money burning and its legality in various jurisdictions[2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K_Foundation_Burn_a_Million_Quid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K_Foundation_Burn_a_Million_Qu... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_burning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_burning
- wahern 8y agoIt's an asset like anything else, so AFAIK same profit and loss rules apply. For a business that means yes, you can. For individuals that means no, you can't, unless there's a special exception such as losing your cash in a federally declared disaster. If you're both and the assets are mixed (e.g. operating budget and retirement account are both kept under your mattress), I imagine the IRS would presume the cash was personal and it'd be difficult to argue otherwise. I'm not an accountant but have studied basic tax law. I only briefly Googled to make sure I'm not patently misrepresenting things, though.
- djabatt 8y agoClassic. Telecom shouldn’t be messing around with owning social media websites. Sadly tumblr is burnt toast thanks to yahoo and other cruft
- dragontamer 8y agoYahoo was pretty good stewards of the site however. I think Yahoo recognized the importance of the community at least. Yahoo never monetized Tumblr, but I don't think they did anything particularly wrong with it.
- PedroBatista 8y agoYahoo didn’t do anything because of their lack of ability by that point, not a virtue. In the same way that didn’t stop Verizon..
- rdiddly 8y agoHey yeah, doesn't the law prevent companies that are "telecommunications services" from also being "information services?" You know what we need? A federal agency to enforce communications laws and stuff. Some sort of federal commission, having to do with communications.
- _rpd 8y agoHow much do they want for it?
- lwansbrough 8y agoI'll give em $5, anyone willing to beat that?
- drewmol 8y agoWould you consider 80% for $4? I would be comfortable with $2 for the remaining 20% to achieve a $6 valuation.
- SllX 8y agoI found a 50¢ on the ground and $2 in the laundry today. I was thinking of buying a cup of coffee tomorrow, but I’ll get in on this action, $2.50 for 18%, and I’ll throw in the dime I found in my shoe last week for a Board seat. There’s some additional changes I would like to make to the content policy.
- drivingmenuts 8y agoI got three-fiddy and some embarrassing pictures of my neighbor's cat ... that do it? Well, OK, they might need some Photoshopping ...
- alexvoda 8y agoI have a big stash of bolivars. I'm willing to trade it for 5%. Grab it quick.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- j9461701 8y agoThe same thing happened with live journal. Executives massively over-react to the terror of possibly hosting child pornography, and therefore decided all pornography - or even anything mildly erotic - had to be ejected. And, like what happened with live journal, the site never recovered. As a sex positive liberal, I admit a certain level of schadenfreude at seeing tumblr's decision bite them in the butt. Using child porn as a pretext to justify a puritanical purge of all erotic content is absolutely obnoxious IMO.
- Simple_Guy 8y ago>As a sex positive liberal What do you consider as the should-be age of consent?
- agentdrtran 8y agohe said liberal, not libertarian
- Stratoscope 8y agoI think the word you were looking for was "libertine". Definitely not the same thing as "libertarian".
- s4vi0r 8y agoLibertarians (the right wing kind, at least) pretty commonly get made fun of/characterized as pedophiles among other things so they probably did mean libertarian lol
- lovich 8y agoThis comment has been downvoted but the phrase, "What if the child consents?" Is actually bandied about frequently on political subreddits like r/libertarian as a mockery by their detractors
- neurobashing 8y agoAlternative take: the great porn purge cleaned the sites biggest problem up, and in the hands of a capable administrator, it’s a nonissue (which is to say pornhub is a good fit)
- larkeith 8y agoKeep in mind that a fairly significant section of the community (anything sex-positive, adult-adjacent, or associated with either) got swept out along with the porn, and a larger portion followed them ("community" bites both ways, especially if you break trust). I'm not sure I can think of any social sites that have survived and rebuilt after such a large exodus - after all, you've already alienated the populous most interested in and willing to discover your product.
- hkmurakami 8y agocuts down tree Would anyone like to buy this nice stump?
- baud147258 8y agoIt depends if you also sell the land on which the stump is located. If yes, you could plant a new tree there
- 24gttghh 8y agoStump grinding is actually a big thing now. They make woodstove pellets from it, and mulch, among other things. edit: I should add that it adds to the overall destruction of a forest ecosystem and I don't agree with it on large-scales.
- Analemma_ 8y agoIf BuzzFeed is to be believed, Pornhub of all places has expressed interest: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanhatesthis/pornhub-interested-in-buying-tumblr https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanhatesthis/pornhub-i.... It seems weird until you realize they probably couldn’t do a worse job than Yahoo and Verizon did; at least they understand why people visit the site.
- solveit 8y agoPornhub is competent, "gets" Tumblr, and has the know-how when it comes to filtering porn. With how cheap they're going to get this, this could be a massive win for Pornhub.
- culturestate 8y agoAgreed. Seems like a no-brainer for PH if they have the cash.
- Broken_Hippo 8y agoSome of the issue with the current Tumblr is the removal of adult content - and everything else that went with it. Pornhub has experience with this sort of thing. Lots of it. The challenges of managing such a place are a bit less, I think. Not only that, but pornhub (for the most part) has a somewhat different sort of reputation than Yahoo and Verizon. Yahoo has been dying for eons and verizon is, well, verizon. Tumblr is likely to get some traffic simply for being owned by Pornhub as well.
- coralreef 8y agoA lot of people will blame Yahoo for Tumblr's demise, but Tumblr's product just did not do enough to keep up in the mobile era. They were soundly out-competed for attention by Instagram, Pinterest, Reddit, and Facebook.
- plankers 8y agoIf you think the demise of tumblr is about anything other than FOSTA, we must be experiencing different parts of the internet.
- coralreef 8y agoDid you use Tumblr? It was the home of my personal blog, and I also used the mobile app. It was a poor experience lacking in engagement. Using Instagram and Reddit was much more fulfilling in creative and online social/community needs. Tumblr's numbers were flat lining before they removed porn. I know this because my friend was a Tumblr engineer and would share data from their all hands meetings.
- isoskeles 8y agoTumblr peaked (in google searches) in mid-2013: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=tumblr https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=t.... Peak Alexa rank was at #23 in August 2013 according to this: http://tumblr.com.alexarankdb.com/ http://tumblr.com.alexarankdb.com/ FOSTA became law in April 2018. So please explain to us how FOSTA was responsible for Tumblr's demise.
- bennesvig 8y agoI was a heavy Tumblr user until I discovered Reddit around then, which made it easier to find the same type of content with more consistency.
- shitbirds 8y agoStunningly, the people who run Verizon couldn’t operate Tumblr if they tried, and no matter how hard they tried, and I guess that has to tell you something important. That when a company really fucking sucks, it is so deeply engrained and baked into the fabric of the organization, and how it operates, that certain things will just forever be impossible within their four walls. If anything, this is a testament to why totalitarian states are shitbirds to the last, because a loser is a loser.
- ycombonator 8y agoWasn’t this one of Marissa Mayer’s accomplishments ?
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- pram 8y agoI'd like to point out that Verizon didn't buy Yahoo to get Tumblr. In all likelihood they never had any plans for it to begin with. I'm honestly surprised they didn't just shut it down.
- phreack 8y agoTumblr is an absolute goldmine of pure original content unavailable anywhere else. A savvy enterprise that acquired it should re-allow adult content with however many filters they like to make amends with the community and devote a while to redo UX and quality of life. Content creators will absolutely come back, as no proper competitor ever rose in the current vacuum yet. After that it could turn into a unicorn in less than a year.
- cageface 8y agoI think we're going to see companies start pulling back from hosting user generated content in general. Policing it is a massive headache and a guarantee of getting pulled into all the current political dogfighting.
- Nextgrid 8y agoNot a bad outcome if it encourages people to self-host.
- lostlogin 8y agoSelf hosting as a service!
- abraae 8y ago"there's brass in muck" though. Someone - maybe not a FAANG but someone smaller and hungrier - will find a way to successfully and profitably steward UGC sites, just as Reddit seems to be able to.
- DC-3 8y ago> profitably steward UGC sites, just as Reddit seems to be able to I thought Reddit has never been profitable?
- throwaway55554 8y agoThey better hurry before FAANG and Congress make it much more expensive to start up.
- ulfw 8y agoWhat has Verizon achieved with the AOL/Yahoo = Oath purchase? Flickr gone. Tumblr gone. A bunch of blogs?
- oaththrowaway 8y agoTechCrunch, HuffPost, Yahoo (News, Sports, Mail, Finance...), Engadget, Edgecast... Still some big stuff left. I think they are trimming the fat (big money losers) right now. Mostly selling ads, but they are working on video too.
- AznHisoka 8y agoYahoo is still most likely an advertising cash cow.. a cow that is probably shrinking though. Wouldnt be surprised if they keep laying off Yahoo staff to make it as profitable as possible.
- cribbles 8y agoLost in the flutter of this discussion is Oath's absurd, borderline comical full-page GDPR notice that gets slapped on _every_ Tumblr subdomain. This was as much or more of a traffic deterrent for me than the content restrictions, which as far as I can tell were never competently enforced (but succeeded in driving off a lot of users anyhow).
- jfk13 8y agoAgreed - personally, I was never a tumblr user anyway, but Oath's farcical "GDPR" notice has ensured that I will never use any of their sites, whatever kind of content they may have.
- PedroBatista 8y agoIf Tumblr with porn was a dumpster fire, now it’s just a dumpster with ashes. Good luck with the sale.
- soup10 8y agoIts amazing how quickly sites can fall when management makes a bonehead move and the community turns against it, reminds me of Digg.
- kowdermeister 8y agoIt would be quite a plot twist if PornHub acquired them :)
- peterkelly 8y agoThey're definitely interested: https://popculture.com/trending/2019/05/02/pornhub-interested-buying-tumblr/ https://popculture.com/trending/2019/05/02/pornhub-intereste...
- return1 8y agoTechcrunch has another article about why pornhub shouldn't buy tumblr , which brings up some good points https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/02/porns-secret-monopoly/ https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/02/porns-secret-monopoly/
- skinnymuch 8y agoBut top 10 porn tube sites like Xvideos and Xhamster aren’t owned by Mindgeek. They have enough porn to satisfy the majority. The article is arguing mindgeek alone is causing issues and lower wages. When it seems more like it is people being cool with piracy and tube sites popping up.
- paxys 8y agoWhat is Tumblr even worth now?
- nailer 8y agoPlease sell it to Pornhub. Don't run it as a porn site, but run it as an art site for adults. Restore all the adult content. Make a decent mobile app, where viewers can like or tip easily. Help creators get paid, using Pornhub's leverage with their financial institutions
- giancarlostoro 8y agoI was pretty active on Tumblr in 2010 had thousands of followers when that was "big" back then and its sad they never asked for paid subscriptions with minor aesthetic features. I would of happily paid $5 a month to use my domain with my Tumblr blog instead they gave that away too. Charge for GIF avatar features. Charge to be able to have access to / or to post NSFW content. This ads first mentality for profitability is stupid. Lastly throw in an ad here or there for different musicians under their respective tags if you want ads. Talk about contextual advertising that wouldnt bother me if I had seen it. Like maybe a band is doing a concert in my own bam! The way I used Tumblr I may of paid $10 a month for a premium account if they just made it all the worthwhile. They also provide asset hosting for free. Come on!
- fifnir 8y ago> I would of > I may of https://www.perfect-english-grammar.com/could-have-should-have-would-have.html https://www.perfect-english-grammar.com/could-have-should-ha...
- aepiepaey 8y agoYou comment would have been more well-received if you explained the issue, rather than just linking a page that doesn't. Anyway, it's "could/should/would have" which in its contracted form is "could've" / "should've" / "would've". If you were going to only include a link, https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/usage/could-of-or-could-have https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/usage/could-of-or-could-ha... would have been a better choice, for example.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- giancarlostoro 8y agoSorry that English is my second language?
- lioeters 8y agoThat comment trying to correct you is itself wrong.. It should be "may have" or "would have". It's a common grammar mistake that even native speakers make, I think because they learned the language "by ear".
- Reimersholme 8y agoI think the biggest problem for Tumblr on the horizon is that it to a huge extent is built on the open Internet with derivative work that relies on copyrighted material. Once the likely coming EU legislation on preemptive censoring of copyrighted material passes, Tumblrs content will be gutted in EU.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- Noxmiles 8y agoಠ⌣ಠ
- marvin 8y agoAnyone want to hazard a guess at how many hundred million dollars of Tumblr’s value was destroyed by the adult content ban? There should be zero bonuses or incentive payments for the executive group that made this decision. The effect was predictable and widely forecast.