Shipping Tumblr And WordPress | CSS-Tricks

Did you see that? Tumblr gets a WordPress makeover? And it is not a trivial step:

This won’t be easy. Tumblr hosts over half a billion blogs. We’re talking about one of the biggest technical migrations in the history of the Internet. Some people think it’s impossible. But we say, “Challenge accepted.”

Half a billion Blogs. Considering that WordPress is already around 40% of all websites (which is much, much higher than 500 m) This will certainly push that number even higher.

I’m sure there’s at least one suspicious nose out there perceive a whiff of marketing smoke although I can certainly agree with the possibility that this is a genuine step towards improving a popular platform that is largely seen as a relic of the Flickr era. I loved Tumblr back in the day. It really embodied the whole idea that having a blog with a variety of post formats can help you write better. (Post formats, fwiw, are something I’ve always wished was a first-class citizen of WordPress, but they never made it beyond an opt-in theme feature). Tumblr was the first time I could see blogging as more than a linear chain of content in reverse chronological order. Blog posts are more about What you write and How you write it as she When they are written.

Anyway, I know that jobs in the technology industry are in short supply these days and Automatic is Looking for people to help with migration.

I was about to say that this “could” be a great opportunity, but no, it’s a super interesting and exciting opportunity where your work touches two of the most influential blogging platforms in the world. I remember an interview with Alex Hollender and Jon Robson after they delivered a design update to Wikipedia and I think about how much fun and learning potential such a project would bring. This has the same vibe for me. But don’t be under any illusions: it will be hard.

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