go-Digital Blog on Digital Marketing

Tumblr Blows Past 15 Billion Pageviews Per Month, Thumbing Nose At Old Media Thinking As It Goes

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/tumblr-blows-past-15-billion-pageviews-per-month-2012-1

The latest social-media phenomenon, Tumblr, continues to post astounding traffic metrics.

Founder and CEO David Karp spoke at the DLD conference in Munich this morning, where he reiterated some of the company’s recent milestones:

• 100+ million uniques per month
• 15+ billion pageviews per month

Tumblr, which is basically halfway between a blogging platform and Twitter, allows users to post photos, videos, and text. Critically, it also allows users to “follow” each other and “re-blog” the posts of others.

The latter concepts, which Twitter has also capitalized on with amazing success (through “following” and “re-tweets”), inserts reblogged posts into each user’s timeline stream. Thus, anyone who “follows” a user, also sees the re-blogged posts.

This turns Tumblr users into editors and curators in addition to content creators. The sharing functionality allows posts to spread rapidly, just as links and headlines do on Facebook and Twitter. In Tumblr’s case, though, the whole post is shared, not just the headline and link.

It’s worth noting that this whole concept makes a mockery of the idea of traditional content “theft.” If someone “re-blogged” a traditional newspaper story, inserting it into their own site, the newspaper would probably scream bloody murder and sic lawyers on them. And yet, on Tumblr, those whose posts are “re-blogged” feel nothing but gratitude and pride (thanks for sharing my work!).

Some other stats from David Karp’s talk this morning (as tweeted by idealab founder Bill Gross and digital journalism guru Jeff Jarvis):

• The average post is “re-blogged” 9 times
• 90% of the posts on Tumblr are reblogs or groups (curation). 10% are original content creation.

In another DLD panel, Glam Media CEO Samir Arora remarked that the “old version of media was that you needed editors that work for you. In new era they don’t.”

Nowhere is that more clear than at Tumblr.

SEE ALSO: Check Out Tumblr’s Amazing New York Headquarters, Where All Those Pageviews Are Made

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See Also:

• Steve Jobs Freaked Out A Month Before First iPhone Was Released And Demanded A New Screen
• Here’s How Google Search Is Destroying Our Memory
• Meet Paul Pittman, Mr. US Economy

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