Tumblr CEO David Karp’s has launched a toolset for users that will let them highlight posts for $1 to gain higher visibility for their work. Despite 20 billion posts, 50 million blogs, 120 million users and about 4.5 billion impressions a week, there’s no desire to fully embrace ads, however.
“We could very easily throw a Google Adsense on and be profitable tomorrow — that’s so far down the list, I mean, we’re selling our desks to avoid that, it’s a complete last resort,” said Karp. “There are two in production — the highlight posts and the ability to purchase and sell themes,” says Karp. As for brands, “We designed it without brands in mind, trying to work it in such a way that it makes it clear that this isn’t the killer feature for you. We’re not expecting Vogue to spend a buck on every one of their posts to make it stand out. In fact, that would make the experience kind of crappy.”
Source: AdAge
