SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Reports had been coming out over the past few days about the likely sale of microblogging site Tumblr by Verizon to Automattic, owner of Wordpress. Now, the Guardian reports that the sale price is said to be just under $3 million, well short of the $1.1 billion price that Yahoo (who was subsequently acquired by Verizon) paid for it in 2013.
Tumblr is the second major Yahoo property to be spun-off by Verizon. The photo-sharing site Flickr was unloaded in April 2018 to photo-sharing site SmugMug. Unlike Flickr, Tumblr managed to maintain the bulk of its userbase through most of the years of its Yahoo ownership, thanks to the strength of its home-grown community, which survived in the face of competition from Facebook and Twitter.
That community took a hit in December 2018, however, when Verizon announced a plan to clean up the site by banning all adult content. The immediate cause of the decision was a temporary ban from Apple's App Store for the Tumblr app, after child pornography was discovered on the social network. But Tumblr's chief executive, D'Onofrio, said that in the longer term, "it became clear that without this content we have the opportunity to create a place where more people feel comfortable expressing themselves".
Tumblr users disagreed, arguing that the site's broadly permissive attitude was key to its unique community.
Rumors are that the sale was conditional upon the site remaining porn-free. On that basis, is $3m too much for it?
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Friday August 16 2019, @03:39PM (5 children)
4. Eventually go out of business, because I mean who buys the line: "I was just reading it for the stories"
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 16 2019, @04:24PM (1 child)
Who bought Playboy for the pics that isn't in their 50s out older? Porn had been so available the last several decades that it's just not that big of a draw.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 17 2019, @12:57PM
Sure when I was 18. The articles were interesting. The pictures more so.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 16 2019, @09:25PM
Playboy actually had a very decent article on the Saturn EV1, actually used that as a formal cited source in a college paper :)
(Score: 2) by driverless on Saturday August 17 2019, @01:51AM (1 child)
That could be valid for Penthouse, at least older issues. For example they had coverage of political issues in the 1970s that no-one else was willing to touch. Friend of mine (legitimately) referenced Penthouse in his PhD dissertation, because that was the only publication brave enough to cover the area he was writing on.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday August 19 2019, @02:03PM
That's more of an exception that proves the rule.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"