Tumblr

Tumblr, sometimes styled as tumblr., is a microblogging platform that allows users to post text, images, videos, links, quotes and audio to their tumblelog, a short-form blog. Users can follow other users, or choose to make their tumblelog private. The service emphasizes ease of use.

Recognition

In January 2009, Tumblr was named by the staff of PC World as one of "Obama's top five tech tools".

In August 2009, Tumblr's CEO, David Karp, was named Best Young Tech Entrepreneur 2009 by BusinessWeek.

In August 2010, Tumblr was named as a finalist in Lead411's New York City Hot 125.

Finances

Tumblr's original funding came from Karp's earnings as a software consultant at parenting site UrbanBaby. Tumblr has raised funding from Union Square Ventures, Spark Capital, Martin Varsavsky, John Borthwick (Betaworks), Fred Seibert, and Sequoia Capital (among other investors). Tumblr shares two lead investors with Twitter. President and COO John Maloney was the founder of UrbanBaby with wife Susan Maloney.

History

David Karp founded Tumblr in 2007 with Marco Arment as lead developer. 75,000 existing bloggers soon switched to the platform, and since that time, the service has garnered more than 3 million users. In 2009, Tumblr acquired the Tumblr iPhone app, initially known as Tumblerette, that was created by Jeff Rock and Garrett Ross.

According to a March 8, 2010 post by David Karp to the Tumblr staff blog, the site is now averaging 2,000,000 posts and 15,000 new users every day. As of 2009, Tumblr had an 85% retention rate,compared with 40% for Twitter.

On March 17, 2010, the Tumblr staff blog announced that Tumblr could be accessed on BlackBerry smartphones via an app created by Mobelux. On April 17, 2010, the application was made available on BlackBerry App World.

In September 2010, Marco Arment left Tumblr to focus on Instapaper.

On December 5, 2010, Tumblr was inaccessible for about 47 hours due to errors during maintenance.

As of May 1, 2011 Tumblr included more than 5 billion total posts and over 17.5 million total blogs. In June of 2011, Tumblr surpassed Wordpress in total number of blogs breaking through the 20 million mark.