Reuters
- Tumblr is being sold off to a new owner — Automattic, the company behind website publisher WordPress — for less than $3 million, Axios reported this week.
- That’s a huge discount compared to the $1.1 billion that Yahoo (since acquired by Verizon) spent to buy the blogging platform in 2013.
- Here are 13 things — including an empty lot in San Francisco’s Bay Area, a rare bluefin tuna, and a racing horse — that are worth more than Tumblr in 2019.
- Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.
Blogging platform Tumblr is reportedly being sold for less than $3 million — a mere fraction of the $1.1 billion spent to purchase the website over five years ago.
Tumblr’s current owner is Verizon, who took over the platform when it acquired Yahoo in 2017. But Verizon has apparently been looking to unload Tumblr since the beginning of this year, and now has agreed to sell it to Automattic, the company that oversees website publisher WordPress.
Tumblr has more than 475 million blogs using its service, but the platform’s value has plummeted since its glory days. Tumblr lost droves of users following its the decision last December to ban any posting of "adult content," defined as media that depicts "real-life human genitals or female-presenting nipples." Automattic’s CEO Matt Mullenweg has already shut down any hopes that Tumblr reinstate NSFW content under its new owner, saying that "adult content is not our forte." Business Insider has reached out to Tumblr for comment on the company’s dropoff in valuation.
It remains to be seen how, or if, Tumblr changes under its new owner. But to put Tumblr’s current valuation into perspective, check out this list of items worth more than Tumblr’s reported sub-$3 million price tag.
$58.4 million — ‘Balloon Dog’ sculpture
AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast
A piece of artwork from famed sculptor Jeff Koons sold at a Christie’s auction in 2013 for $58.4 million. The sale set a record for the most expensive piece of art by a living artist sold at auction.
The artwork, called "Balloon Dog (Orange)," is 12-foot-tall orange metallic sculpture designed to look like a balloon animal.
$10 million to $20 million — Reddit when it was acquired in 2006.
Publishing powerhouse Condé Nast purchased mega-forum platform Reddit in 2006 for a price estimated between $10 million and $20 million.
The difference in price between Reddit and Tumblr makes sense: Reddit saw almost 1.7 billion visits in July, while Tumblr had around 380 million visits last month, according to web analytics firm Similar Web.
$9 million — An empty lot in Palo Alto
Google Maps
Rent in Silicon Valley is absurdly expensive. One example showing just how expensive real estate has become is this 11,000-square-foot property in Palo Alto, located at 1628 Bryant Street.
The lot is completely bare, and is listed for $9 million. Realtors have said the price is so high because of its neighborhood: It’s in Old Palo Alto, home to some of the tech industry’s most rich and most famous, and is only blocks from Stanford University’s campus.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider
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Source: Business Insider – pleskin@businessinsider.com (Paige Leskin)