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It is worth noting that Tumblr was an indirect acquisition by Verizon when they bought Yahoo in 2017. It seems to have had stable unique views up until Aug-Sep
by Gpetrium 7y ago
It is worth noting that Tumblr was an indirect acquisition by Verizon when they bought Yahoo in 2017.
It seems to have had stable unique views up until Aug-Sep 18 [1]. At some point it suffered from country-wide bans in places such as Indonesia. The country bans coupled with a ban from the iOS App store [2] caused direct downward pressure on viwership. This has led to a rapid drop in viewership in the months after [3]. Considering the amount of legislation towards telecom companies and the potential risk to the Verizon brand by proxy, it was imperative that the company would sell Tumblr.
Due to the current political environment in the US, it is unlikely that Automattic will open the gates that partially made Tumblr what it was in the 17-18 era for the next 3-6 months, that is unless they take a very conservative take on reviewing that kind of content prior to it being posted.
[1] [3] https://www.statista.com/statistics/261925/unique-visitors-to-tumblrcom/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/261925/unique-visitors-t...
[2] https://www.theverge.com/2018/11/17/18100156/tumblr-apple-app-store-ios-missing https://www.theverge.com/2018/11/17/18100156/tumblr-apple-ap...
- mcintyre1994 7y agoAlso important context on that viewership, they banned adult content in December ‘18 - which presumably explains the acceleration in drop since then.
- carbocation 7y agoTheir adult content ban in December 2018 probably also accelerated that decline: https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/14/18266013/tumblr-porn-ban-lost-users-down-traffic https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/14/18266013/tumblr-porn-ban-...
- cortesoft 7y agoI think the adult content ban was in response to being blocked in some countries and by iOS... they banned adult content so those bans would be reversed