Verizon correcting the mistakes of yesteryear with Tumblr sale

There are good acquisitions and bad acquisitions, and then there was the prolonged saga with Verizon acquiring Yahoo’s media assets.

In 2017, Verizon decided it wanted to scrap with Google and Facebook to secure a slice of the lucrative online advertising bonanza. Its route to these riches was acquiring Yahoo’s media assets, an on-going saga was has led to little more than headaches for the telco. Now Verizon has announced it will get rid of one of the adopted problem children.

Financials of the deal have not been announced, though WordPress owner Automattic will acquire Tumblr.

“Tumblr is one of the Web’s most iconic brands,” said Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg. “It is an essential venue to share new ideas, cultures and experiences, helping millions create and build communities around their shared interests. We are excited to add it to our lineup, which already includes WordPress.com, WooCommerce, Jetpack, Simplenote, Longreads, and more.”

Perhaps one of the biggest problems with Tumblr is figuring out what to do with it. In its own right, Tumblr is a very successful platform, home to 475 million blogs, though translating such potential is often a difficult task, requiring forward- and out-of-the-box thinking. Automattic looks to be a much more suited business to realise this ambition than the traditional telco.

“Tumblr is a marquee brand that has started movements, allowed for true identities to blossom and become home to many creative communities and fandoms,” said Verizon Media CEO Guru Gowrappan.

“We are proud of what the team has accomplished and are happy to have found the perfect partner in Automattic, whose expertise and track record will unlock new and exciting possibilities for Tumblr and its users.”

For Verizon, this is another chapter is a pretty miserable story so far. The entry into the media world started on shaky grounds with huge data leaks and hasn’t got much better. It does still own some very attractive titles, TechCrunch and Huffington Post for example, though in laying off 7% of staff last October as well as 15% of UK staff in January demonstrates the pain.

The telco has to make the media business work for it, it did make a $5 billion bet after all, but it has not been a simple quest to date.