Lauren MacEwen: Tumblr Revival Won't Happen Without Adult Content

Tumblr was a giant for porn in social media. For many people, this was the first place they went to for porn. But Tumblr was more than that, it was a place where people went and discovered their sexuality. It was a safe harbor for sex educators, kinky people, LGBTQ, and pretty much anything sex positive. It was a place where people could discover their sexuality and get supported during that discovery period. Then Tumblr murdered this beautiful, sex -positive flower brutally and abruptly last December. Well, if they thought they were not going to feel the effects of that, they were wrong. The valuation of the company dropped to nearly nothing. Since then, its parent company, Verizon, had been seeking a buyer. Pornhub talked about buying it. Honestly, a lot of us thought it would be a good fit. Why they didn’t? I don’t know. Maybe the price tag was still more than they wanted, or maybe it was just another good marketing attention grabber. But, Tumblr recently found another good buyer, Automattic. Automattic is the company behind Wordpress. Tumblr was created as a microblogging platform. Wordpress is a blogging platform. Tumblr, believe it or not, was a competitor for Wordpress and captured a younger audience, and often a less tech savvy audience. It was easy to have a quick Tumblr blog without the hassle of Wordpress, and it was already hosted on a great social network that would help build your audience. Don’t get me wrong, there were plenty of very sophisticated Tumblr blogs, but you didn’t have to be sophisticated to be on the network and be popular on the network, at that. Wordpress buying Tumblr seems like a great fit. But what is a very interesting possibility is, will Automattic allow NSFW content back onto Tumblr? They claim to be all about freedom…as long as it is legal. Automattics CEO, Mattt Mullenweg said, “Adult content is not our forte either, and it creates a huge number of potential issues with app stores, payment providers, trust, and safety. I personally have very liberal views on these things, but supporting adult content as a business is very different.” Of course, you can put porn on Wordpress. It seems like his statement is a very PC thing to say and is towing the line of adult content has hazards…sooooo….. Likely without allowing adult content back onto Tumblr, the microblogging social network will not be revived. So unless Automattic has big plans for Tumblr that we are not aware of, if they want to breathe life back into the platform they will have to open the door to adult content. Lauren MacEwen is the Chief Strategist of 7 Veils Media, the premier social marketing solutions company for the adult entertainment. Tweet to her @7_veils or email her at [email protected] Learn more about how 7 Veils can help you with your social marketing at 7veils.com