The Tumblr purchase is very likely to be the steal of this tech cycle.

Instagram was surely the uncontested #1 for this title but there’s no doubt that it’s very likely for Automattic to do something useful with Tumblr.

I’m saying “very likely” since it all depends on the outcome of this purchase — and how Automattic will make use of Tumblr.

Nonetheless, surely there’s more to the story than just a simple purchase, since both the $3 and $20 million alleged figures are stupendously low for what seems to be an estimated user base of 370 million.

Once again, this could be the steal of this tech era and the more Automattic plans to work on Tumblr, the more it will be written in books/articles/magazines/etc about how they managed to get ahold of this once very flourishing product.

And I do hope more will be made out of Tumblr, just for the sake of having another story of a giant that’s been disabled and then rehabilitated.

It’s interesting to see this purchase after Matt Mullenweg (eve wondered why it’s called Automattic?) commented on how Tumblr users jumped ship to WordPress after the adult-content-ban.

Yet there’s one question about what can happen. Since a big transfer already happened from Tumblr to WP, what is there left to do with it?

If I’d be Automattic, it’d be smart to do anything around the social aspect and the network effect. Yes, the old Tumblr fashion was not winning, that was highlighted to us.

But the enterprise or “self-hosted” or everything else that’s serious is already handled by Automattic since… well, that’s what they’ve been doing so far.

The area in which they weren’t doing quite a lot was anything that had to with a social platform. Bringing their acumen to a place that needs rehabilitation, I think, will show us what they’re capable of.

On one hand, they’ve got the real solution if you’re looking for power and customizability — offering open-source and a dedicated service.

On the other hand, they (hopefully) will develop Tumblr into the more scalable and even more lightweight than WordPress.com out-of-the-box solution.

Looking forward to seeing how it plays out.

About Ch Daniel

I’ve updated this signature in July 2020, so older mentions of the signature might not make sense.

I currently don’t write on this blog anymore. I wrote daily for 9 months on this very blog, but now I’m focused on building the CH Group.

If you want to follow my newer articles, check out the CH Group’s blog.

See everything I do here: Chdaniel.com