Tumblr Implements Ads to User's Blogs a Win Win?

in money •  8 years ago  (edited)

Tumblr recently announced that they would be placing ads on user's blogs starting Thursday, July 28th. According to Tumblr's Staff blog post this is, "So that later this year people can start making money from their blogs." Having ads on your blog is optional however, and users can remove ads through the settings tab of their dashboard. Previously, advertisements on Tumblr have only been seen in the mix of posts while scrolling through the dashboard. Ads on user blogs are not a new thing. Some bloggers with large follower counts have placed ads on their blogs to make money in the past, but ads that are chosen by tumblr to be displayed on blogs is brand new. As a Tumblr user, the ads displayed on the dashboard while scrolling through posts from blog's I follow have not been intrusive, or majorly disruptive to my Tumblr experience. Usually, I am not a fan of ads on social media platforms because I often find them to be annoying, distracting, and a downer on the overall user experience because they waste my time. Tumblr is a unique platform in that the ads are not present for long, in less than a second I can see the ad, notice that it is not a post from a blog that I follow, keep calm and scroll on. The impact of the advertisement is very minimal and not as frustrating as for example a 30 second ad on YouTube that I am forced to watch before enjoying my content. Like the dashboard ads on Tumblr, the ads that users have placed on their blog pages are not very annoying or unpleasant. In the same way I don't think that implementing ads that Tumblr chooses to place on user's blogs will be much of a concern. That being said, there are some concerns that I have. These concerns are about how the Tumblr user will benefit from having ads on their blog and how Tumblr has initiated this process without being very transparent about the details.

The only information source is the post from Tumblr's Staff blog announcing the introduction of ads coming to Tumblr blogs:

Tumblr has begun to roll out these ads on user's blogs, but have provided very few details about how exactly user's will make money from the ads. It is frustrating that Tumblr has been vague about the details stating in their post, "later this year people can start making money from their blogs." And when addressing Who?, When?, How much? etc... "We’re still working out the details of the partner program but as soon as we have details to share, we’ll make announcements right here on trusty Staff. Just so you know: You won’t be able to make money until you register for the program—which is coming soon."

The model Tumblr is using is the implement now, answer questions later on. Of course, this leads to more questions being asked in the meantime, and we will just have to wait and see what happens. What are your thoughts on this?

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  ·  8 years ago (edited)

Thanks for sharing this info with us. Like you say, ads on Tumblr blogs are not new - but until now, I think they were against the terms and conditions and could be removed. There's also a lot of subtle affiliate advertising in posts by large blogs already.

I imagine that Tumblr will take a large percentage of any ad profits, and that it'll only be useful for blogs with very high pageviews - but this system sounds very convenient for users. Taking ads into your own hands might reap higher rewards, but an integrated ad system seems more transparent and accessible.

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