We all knew it was going to happen. Especially when the CEO started insisting that paid advertising was, like, totally icky and Tumblr was going to find a new, magic way to make money on the Internet, possibly by farming Tumblbeasts for their meat and luscious green fur (I’m wearing Tumblbeast undies right now, and they feel like victory).
But, apparently, Tumblr has started to give into the economic realities of the Internet. Selling blog themes and highlighting posts for a buck is just not a profitable business model when you’ve got fifty million blogs to support. At least the company’s CEO had the decency to be ashamed:
“[CEO David Karp] was scheduled to talk for a half hour, but I think the whole thing lasted 7 minutes,” [New York-based tech consultant Rex Sorgatz] continued. “He cited some growth numbers, mentioned how much he appreciates the creativity within the advertising community, and then broke the news that Tumblr would be opening up that spot to advertisers.”
One of the strangest elements, Sorgatz said, was how Karp ended the presentation: “He flashed his email address on the screens, took no questions, and then zipped out the building.”
Cue the whining about how this will, like, totally destroy Tumblr and BAAAAAAAWWWW advertising. You know, because all the people in their Urban Outfitters clothes with their custom Bose headphones plugged into their Apple products listening to music paid for by gigantic entertainment consortiums don’t want to be tools of the Man.
(Image via Tumblr)