By Nitasha Tiku 4/19 10:45am

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Storyboard Speaks: Laid-Off Tumblr Staffers Discuss David Karp’s Decision

Earlier this week, Tumblr CEO David Karp took the stage at PaidContent Live for a panel called “Tumblr and the Future of Media.” It was a poignant title considering that one of the topics discussed was Mr. Karp’s recent, rather brusque blog post announcing the end of Storyboard, a high-profile editorial experiment that hired journalists to write features or film documentary video about Tumblr’s community of “creators.”

For example, this Storyboard piece about a photojournalist documenting a gang truce in El Salvador (on his Tumblr) was published by Mother Jones. One about activists and feminists using nail art (and the growing subculture on Tumblr) was produced in partnership with the Daily Beast. Read More

By Jordan Valinsky 4/17 12:35pm

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Man with the plan? (Photo: Twitter/SuccessMag)

Tumblr’s David Karp Apparently Doesn’t Consider Profitability a Particularly Important Metric

When you’re as stylish as Tumblr CEO David Karp, who needs to sweat the small stuff? Case in point: his company’s profitability. During an interview at a conference hosted by paidContent, he informed the audience that Tumblr isn’t making money—but it’s “not a metric that is particularly important to us.”

But don’t panic, investors: Mr. Karp added that the company will “absolutely” become profitable, eventually. At some point. Read More

By Kelly Faircloth 4/11 6:45pm

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Probably not the key to a new castle on the moon. (via)

And Here is Tumblr’s New L.A. Office Space. Time to Sell Some Ads!

Well, well: Looks like even as Tumblr was shuttering Storyboard, the company was getting ready to begin another chapter on the sunny West Coast. Yesterday, the company’s head of sales, Lee Brown, posted several photos of an unfurnished building.

“Tumblr LA office open!!!” he captioned it. It looks just like every startup space in Soho–except for the rays, of course.

Smack in the center of the lead photo, holding up a key, is wunderkind CEO David Karp. It doesn’t seem like Mr. Karp lingered to answer questions from employees re: what was up with that Storyboard shutdown. Read More

By Nitasha Tiku 4/11 2:55pm

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david karp

String of Executive Departures Leaves a Leadership Vacuum at the Top of Tumblr

Late Tuesday night, while most of New York City was “afk” enjoying the balmy weather, Tumblr CEO David Karp snuck a post onto the staff blog paying tribute to Storyboard–a team of journalists and editors assigned to “cover Tumblr as a living, breathing community.”

After gushing with pride over Storyboard’s many accolades, Mr. Karp pivoted, abruptly. The year-old concept “had run its course” and the editorial team, he announced, “will be closing up shop and moving on.” Please, he asked, “join us in wishing them well.”

But the Storyboard layoffs, which affected three staffers peripheral to internal operations, are hardly the only departures Tumblr has faced over the past six or seven months. Rather, they’re the only ones Mr. Karp has spoken about publicly. Read More

By Kelly Faircloth 4/09 10:20pm

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He's staring at a large pile of money, shimmering in the distance like an oasis.

Tumblr Kills Storyboard; Editorial Employees Will Be ‘Moving On’

We’ve seen some late-afternoon news dumps, but this takes the cake: Tumblr CEO David Karp just announced that the company is shutting down Storyboard, the editorial experiment meant to highlight the work of the social network’s much-touted “creators.”

Even though Tumblr “couldn’t be happier with our team’s effort,” Mr. Karp wrote that, “What we’ve accomplished with Storyboard has run its course for now.” The editorial team “will be closing up shop and moving on.”

“I want to personally thank them for their great work. And please join us in wishing them well,” he added. Read More

By Rebecca Seel 1/29 9:15am

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Screen Shot 2013-01-28 at 4.33.26 PM

Petition for Tumblr to Stop ‘Alienating Their Entire Userbase’ Gets More Than 18,000 Signatures

Late last week, David Karp announced a number of changes to Tumblr triumphantly billed as “An upgrade, years in the making…” In order to make room for “BIG new” features, such as customizable drag-and-drop photoset creation, faster uploads, and inline reblogging, he said, “we’ve reduced creation on Tumblr to its essence, while carrying over every single feature.”

But a number of Tumblr users–more than 18,000 of them, in fact–don’t see the change as an improvement. They’ve signed a petition on Change.org–a platform more typically used to advocate for social justice–to “Undo the 1/24/2013 update that screwed up the posting procedure.” Read More

By Nitasha Tiku and Patrick Clark 12/17/12 11:40am

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Screen shot 2012-12-17 at 11.06.25 AM

Tumblr Shamed ‘For Desecration of the American Way of Life’ by New York City Carpenters Union

There is currently an inflatable rat stationed outside Tumblr’s offices on 35 East 21st Street, according to one of the building’s occupants. The New York City District Council of Carpenters has installed the familiar oversized rodent as a symbol of what the union calls a “labor dispute” with Tumblr.

Matthew Schmitz, a deputy editor at First Things, which has an office near Tumblr’s, reported the dispute on Twitter, posting a photo of a flyer being handed out this morning.  Read More

By Nitasha Tiku 11/14/12 11:30am

Insurgents

Mr. Webb

Tech Insurgents 2012: Rick Webb

The Undercover Ad Man

Of all the “if you build it, they will come,” social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, Tumblr seemed the most advertising-averse. Floppy-haired founder David Karp memorably betrayed a visceral distaste for the stuff. It “really turns our stomachs,” he said in 2010, following that up with a vow not to become “wildly profitable” by slapping an AdSense ad on the otherwise elegant dashboard of all 80 million Tumblr blogs. But it seems as though the microblogging site’s methodical approach toward making money has paid off—thanks in part to guidance from Rick Webb, a 20-year veteran of the ad industry and co-founder of digital consultancy Barbarian Group, who was attracted to Tumblr for its aversion to the “crap” ads that permeate the web. Read More

By Nitasha Tiku 11/08/12 11:55am

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XKCD's Geocities tribute (Photo: Inquisitr

Fred Wilson: I’ve Seen GeoCities. And You, Tumblr, Are No GeoCities

At yesterday’s Ad Tech New York conference, Union Square Ventures investor Fred Wilson dismissed the notion that Tumblr will go the way of GeoCities. Mr. Wilson should know: he invested in both.

Although the two platforms, which both grew out of empowering community and self-expression, may share a similar trajectory–explosive traffic, scads of funding, sky high valuations–he argued that Tumblr has modern social media’s emphasis on the news feed (for elegance of consumption) combined with a different approach to advertising.  Read More