Automattic, the parent company of both Tumblr and WordPress, has announced a plan to run Tumblr on the WordPress platform. This move aims to consolidate the struggling microblogging service by integrating it with WordPress, while still maintaining separate “missions” and business opportunities for each platform. The task presents a unique challenge for the company.
Founded by Matt Mullenweg, a co-developer of WordPress, Automattic plans to use the WordPress backend to manage Tumblr’s blogs. According to Mullenweg, this change should be seamless for both Tumblr users and visitors, with no noticeable differences in their experience.
Since acquiring Tumblr in 2019 for a bargain price, Automattic has focused on enhancing Tumblr’s efficiency and business viability. Unifying the management of Tumblr and WordPress under a single backend system is expected to streamline operations for both platforms. The timing of this announcement is notable, as it comes after the company faced allegations earlier this year of using blog data from both platforms for AI model development.
Despite the integration, Automattic insists that Tumblr’s unique qualities will remain intact. The company appreciates Tumblr’s distinct approach to microblogging and has no intention of altering its core features. “We love Tumblr’s streamlined posting experience and its current product direction,” the company stated. “And this is not changing.”
By using a unified technical foundation, Automattic can leverage shared development efforts across both platforms. WordPress’s robust infrastructure will provide stability for Tumblr, while WordPress itself will benefit from tools originally developed for Tumblr. This collaboration will be supported by the open-source WordPress.org community of developers.
Automattic notes that Tumblr currently hosts over half a billion blogs, and migrating all that data to WordPress represents one of the largest technical migrations in internet history. While the task is daunting, the company points out that other major internet firms have successfully managed similar transitions.
No specific timeline has been provided for the completion of this migration, but Automattic is committed to the challenge of converting Tumblr’s extensive microblogging content into WordPress installations. The company’s core philosophy emphasizes that “Content and data should be owned by authors and artists instead of getting locked behind the closed platform of a mega-corporation.”
Tumblr, once acquired by Yahoo under Marissa Mayer’s leadership in 2013 for $1 billion, was later sold to Automattic for just $3 million, a fraction of its original value. Though it was once seen as a rising star in the social networking world, Tumblr has since scaled back, now focusing on selling digital goods, advertising, and subscriptions.Read More…….
