WPTavern is reporting that Automattic has acquired Tumblr.
To say this is surprising is an understatement. The question of “Why?” comes up next. It seems obvious that Automattic is not doing this as a money making venture but more about trying to keep a passionate community alive, as the fans of Tumblr are definitely that.
The next thing that seems surprising is that Automattic will rebuild the backend using WordPress but maintain the front end functionality and appearance of it. While you’re at Automattic, why not bring the same microblogging functionality over to WordPress itself? This is something I’ve been wanting for a long time, basically the best aspects of both platforms combined together.
Post Formats, created long ago, were supposed to provide this but never took off. Many people said they didn’t see the need for them but obviously there is a huge user base out there who do love their simple functionality for microblogging. Still people today say we don’t need them because we have Gutenberg Blocks now but blocks don’t restyle the entire post to match the context of it (ie micropost vs long form post).
Article Embedding is another thing that Tumblr has that WordPress needs desperately across its entire platform to enable true microblogging. While WordPress does allow for the “embedding” of articles using the Embed Block, it is severely limited and doesn’t working universally with any site URL, which makes it pointless to even use. WordPress needs true article embedding built in its core, like what larger social networking platforms like Facebook and Twitter have, to seriously compete with them and make WordPress more than just a long form platform.