The Day Tumblr Died
Perhaps I'm being a little dramatic. Today at a marketing conference, Tumblr staffers on a panel confirmed while answering a question about the potential return of any kind of “reply” functionality thatmessaging was the replacement forreplies.
I don't think I've ever seen such a colossal mis-step from a social media company. One can only surmise that they are changing the platformon-purpose. Weknowthat the traditional bloggers were a tiny minority at Tumblr, and weknow that the vast majority of the content is re-blogged garbage, but there was a hard core of bloggers in the centre of the Tumblr universe that recorded their lives, hopes, and dreams, and interracted with a sprawling circle of friends through replies to each other's posts.
The Tumblr staff at the conference stated that messaging provided the same funtionas replies.
Uh No.
A reply is publicly accessibly feedback, andshould afford the writer and reader with the opportunity to take the conversation further. Of course Tumblr never allowed this to happen either, but it at least allowedsome feedback, even if it was one dimensional.
Perhaps I should question why I think this is such a big deal? Maybe because it points towards the first real failure of a platform since MySpace. They don't happenthat often.
Of course Tumblr is owned by Yahoowho may well sell everything in the coming months. The rumour mill is citing Apple as a potential buyer. Imagine thatApple owning Tumblr. Say goodbye to all the adult content, and say hello to paid accountsbecause Economics 101 tells us that if nobody is buying something, all you need to do is put it in a posh bottle, and double the price.
You think I'm joking? We'll see, won't we.