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Regardless of delays, the plan to attach Tumblr’s running a blog web site to the broader world of decentralized social media, also called the “fediverse,” continues to be on, it appears. Over a yr in the past, Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg — whose firm acquired Tumblr from Verizon in 2019 — posted on Twitter that the location would “soon” add support for ActivityPub, the protocol powering Twitter/X rival Mastodon and different decentralized social apps. However as time lapsed since that pronouncement, it wasn’t clear if Tumblr was nonetheless shifting in that course.
To complicate issues additional, Tumblr recently cut a number of staff, relocating many to different tasks inside its mother or father firm Automattic, which runs WordPress.com, WooCommerce, Pocket Casts and extra, together with the recently acquired Texts.com. The re-org was meant to ease the monetary pressures Tumblr has been underneath, as the location continued to lose money. But it surely additionally led many fediverse advocates to surprise if Tumblr’s plans to hitch the world of decentralized social media had additionally been scrapped.
As well as, a post by a Tumblr employee appeared to point the undertaking was now on the again burner as they stated the fediverse plan had been moved to Tumblr’s testing grounds, Tumblr Labs.
Now, CEO Matt Mullenweg is clearing up the standing of Tumblr’s fediverse ambitions in an AMA (Ask Me Something) shared on his personal Tumblr weblog. In response to a query from TechCrunch, Mullenweg defined that regardless of the re-org, which can see many Tumblr workers transfer to different tasks on the finish of the yr, Automattic did change somebody over to Tumblr to work on the fediverse integration, which can proceed within the new yr.
Nonetheless, Mullenweg cautioned that, to this point, Automattic hadn’t but seen outsized person demand for federated social media.
“The Activity Pub and Friends plugins for WordPress are each from Automatticians, and have allowed us house to play on this house and perceive the neighborhood and protocols, and likewise gauge person demand,” Mullenweg wrote. “Proper now each have underneath ten thousand customers, so there hasn’t been a giant person push for this but,” he famous.
However he stated that folk will “dig into Tumblr’s codebase” to see what it may do about shifting ahead with federation.
Studying between the strains, it appears the corporate isn’t prepared to position a full guess on ActivityPub — although Mullenweg typically helps a extra open web.
“I stay an enormous believer in open requirements and person freedom, although I don’t declare to have the reality on which specific customary is healthier or finest, to serve our prospects we’ll help every little thing we will in good religion to offer customers extra freedom, selection, and keep away from lock-in,” he additionally stated in his AMA. (Mullenweg advised us earlier within the yr the corporate was additionally evaluating different protocols, like Bluesky’s AT Protocol and nostr, for what it’s value).
Although Mastodon right this moment solely has round 1.5 million monthly active users, ActivityPub is seeing extra momentum as of late — particularly now that Instagram Threads, one other Twitter/X competitor, is pledging integration with the fediverse. Many locally anticipate that to reach within the early a part of 2024. Within the meantime, Threads customers are able to verify their profile on Mastodon as an initial step. Different startups, just like the Mozilla-backed app Mammoth and indie apps like Ivory, have additionally launched to make the fediverse extra approachable for newcomers, whereas corporations like Flipboard and Medium have embraced Mastodon, too. That might give Tumblr a wanted push in 2024 to find out if ActivityPub is value its time, and whether or not or not it would make technological sense to carry Tumblr blogs to Mastodon.
In different phrases, despite the fact that there’s work being finished on Tumblr’s fediverse integrations, it’s removed from being a finished deal presently.
In one other AMA response, Mullunweg additionally famous {that a} bigger effort emigrate Tumblr’s half a billion blogs to WordPress on the backend is one thing he’s additionally considering within the new yr.
“We’ll sort out it, however I’m undecided when,” the exec stated.