NEW PURCHASE

Verizon to Sell Blogging Website Tumblr to Wordpress Owner

Tumblr was bought by Yahoo for $1.1 billion, but it failed to generate a large amount of revenue.

Verizon agreed to sell the blogging website Tumblr to the owner of online publisher Wordpress, The Wall Street Journal reports. Automattic Inc. will reportedly buy the free blogging site for an “undisclosed sum” and take about 200 staffers from Verizon—which got the platform for art, music, and photos through its acquisition of Yahoo. Yahoo bought Tumblr for $1.1 billion in 2013, but Tumblr failed to generate a large amount of revenue. In 2016, the company deemed the blogging site to be worth only $230 million. Tumblr has failed to grow to the levels of other websites like Reddit and Facebook. A ban on adult content ban put in place by Verizon also cut out some of Tumblr’s users. Automattic’s chief executive Matt Mullenweg told the Journal his company intends on keeping the adult content ban in place.