Tumblr Bets on Big-Name Publishers

By: Josh Sternberg | Digiday

Twitter used its entree with celebrities -- hello @aplusk and @oprah! -- to build a tech platform into a media juggernaut. Tumblr is hoping to do the same, only it’s banking on old-school media properties to popularize its platform and create the kind of safe environments that will attract brand-advertising dollars.

The reason Tumblr is so into old-school publishers -- The Atlantic, Newsweek and Mother Jones have set up shop on Tumblr -- is that it has to be known as something more than a random collection of Web oddities, such as Is Ryan Gosling Cuter Than a Puppy. Those kinds of sites, while undeniably popular, will remain difficult to build a business on, since they tend to look like a collection of long-tail sites that draw bottom-of-the barrel ad pricing.