Tumblr turns 10

by JW Hoh

Tumblr turns 10 years old this weekend. To commemorate the big anniversary, CEO and founder David Karp is doing an Answer Time, a feature on Tumblr where they partner with interesting personalities all over the world, to answer any questions asked by users on the social media platform. The Answer Time feature will be on February 17, 3pm-4pm Eastern Time, although users can leave their questions as early as now.

David Karp has also taken to his personal Tumblr blog to write and share about the journey he took to bring Tumblr to where it is now. He narrated that in the year 2006, he and his friend Marco Arment decided to launch a little side project where they could “post anything and customize everything.” At that point, he admitted that he wasn’t sure why the world needed Tumblr, but just knew that it did. The premise of the website was to create a place where people could express their individual voice and design, to create something that truly and uniquely represents who they are.

After 4 months of David managing his own personal Tumblr blog and doing tweaks and improvements all around the site, Tumblr finally opened to the public in 2007 with modest expectations. However, they were surprised when hundreds of thousands of users immediately flocked to the social media website to create their own blog to share their creativity. With the rising popularity of the website, investors began to come in, and the rest is history.

This 2017, Tumblr now has 336 million blogs, 146 billion posts, and counting. To end his blog post, David thanked everyone who has continuously supported the platform. He also shared his vision for the next 10 years of Tumblr, stating that apart from individual expression, they will also now be focusing on creating a positive environment for people to thrive. He said that he aspires for Tumblr to produce empowering and conducive communities and relationships, to create a place where people can feel safe to be themselves.

 

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