Verizon Media, who last year acquired the microblogging site Tumblr has agreed to sell it off to Automattic Inc. According to The Wall Street Journal reports, the WordPress owner company, Automattic, will be acquiring Tumblr for an undisclosed amount soon.
Verizon bought Tumblr after it had acquired Yahoo, last year. Tumblr was the Yashoo’s subsidiary, and for the last year, Verizon Media was taking care of its operations and actions. The company had also imposed a ban on the adult content sharing over the platform, which got the platform to lose most of its user base.
Tumblr was one of the first and the most popular social media platform, but for the past couple of years, it has been struggling with its position in the market. Though before Verizon bought the company, many preferred Tumblr over any other social media platform. The ban that Verizon had put on the company has made many of its users boycott the platform. Since then, the companies, including Instagram and Snapchat, that came after Tumblr into the field of social media, are taking over the whole business game.
Even though the ban has led to the fall in the number of users for Tumblr, Automattic Inc. has no plans to remove the ban and continue with the Tumblr operations as it is.
“Adult content is not our forte either, and it creates a huge number of potential issues with app stores, payment providers, trust and safety,” said Automattic’s CEO Matt Mullenweg on Monday. “It’s a problem area best suited for companies fully dedicated to creating a great experience there. I have very liberal views on these things, but supporting adult content as a business is very different,” he added further.
Mullenweg also said that the company would be using Tumblr as complementary to its current platforms, and it won’t receive any changes shortly. Since Tumblr also has its app, Automattic may use its app for the expansion for its other products and services.
“Today’s announcement is the culmination of a thoughtful, thorough and strategic process,” Verizon Media CEO Guru Gowrappan said. “Tumblr is a marquee brand that has started movements, allowed for true identities to blossom and become home to many creative communities and fandoms. We are proud of what the team has accomplished and are happy to have found the perfect partner in Automattic.”
But for everyone’s surprise, according to a report from Axios, the acquisition will take place for a sum of 3 million, which is way less than the amount that Yahoo paid for to buy it in 2013, i.e. $1.1 billion.
Yashica is a Software Engineer turned Content Writer, who loves to write on social causes and expertise in writing technical stuff. She loves to watch movies and explore new places. She believes that you need to live once before you die. So experimenting with her life and career choices, she is trying to live her life to the fullest.