Very quick post this morning.
Yahoo! has agreed to acquire Tumblr for $1.1 Billion. That’s a huge payday for the founders & investors of Tumblr. Good for them. Unfortunately, Yahoo! has a long history of acquiring interesting technologies, especially those used by artists, and then shutting them down or neglecting them until they become obsolete (case in point – see Flickr.com).
Thousands of people are leaving Tumblr in anticipation of the inevitable changes that Tumblr will have to make. Tumblr is still very open – they allow all kinds of content. This is great for edge artists or artists who like to paint nudes. Odds are that Yahoo! will tighten down the posting guidelines there, and artists who have mature content will probably be forced to find another venue.
The Lesson
Be independent. Don’t rely on Tumblr, Facebook, or any other platform as your primary messaging platform, or you might get lost.
This means you need your own website, with the blog included as part of the domain. The longer you rely on a 3rd party service that controls the platform where you place your content, the worse off you will be when they decide to change the rules.
If you’ve been considering setting up your own standalone website and incorporating your blog into that site, I happen to offer that service.
image credit to CultofAndroid
That is a very good insight Cory. As an artist in the business of online marketing, I see this all the time that rather than building their own platforms and “tribes”as Seth Godin calls them, artists rely (out of lack of knowledge and fear) on the social media platforms to build their audience, but forget those platforms are really building their own audience. Like watching a sports team, they are happy with you as a fan when you will pay huge bucks, and when it’s time for a lock out or walk out ….everyone suddenly calls it a business. If anyone knows how to help people ( this coming from someone in the biz!)’ Cory you sure do. I highly recommend your services.
Thanks Harmony – that means a lot coming from someone as savvy as you!
Hi Cory,
Not a comment but a couple of questions. I have a website with Fine Art Studios Online (www.FASO.com), which is specifically for artists. Is your service similar to theirs? Also, is your service based on a WordPress.org site/theme? I tried that a while back and found I wasn’t nearly as tech savvy as I thought, but it is something I’d like to have. Thanks, Carole
PS Love your blog!
Hi Carole – yes, the website service that we offer is based on WordPress. FASO is a completely different service that they built themselves.
Feel free to contact me directly if you have further questions!