More than a year ago, Yahoo! bought Tumblr for an astounding $1.1b. At the time, I speculated the deal would mean more ads would be displayed on the dashboard, which has come to pass, although not to the level I thought it would approach. New Yahoo! CEO Marissa Meyer kept to her word on not messing with what made Tumblr so popular, which is invigorating in this age of tech business acquisitions and maneuvering. Starting this week, however, some behind-the-scenes changes are being implemented to help brands better understand Tumblr and its users… and it’s not as bad as you may think.
Tumblr is signing a deal with Ditto, a tech company that has created a system that can scan photos for brand-related data and logos to send to said brands. As an example, I used a header from the Ditto website that shows exactly what happens: Ditto scans photos for logos, then sends the photos to the proper brand to show popularity and affiliations amongst a demographic of people. Tumblr head of business development T.R. Newcomb has said the deal has nothing to do with ad-related content, stating, “If Coke wants to understand the nature of the conversation [about them on Tumblr] Ditto can sift through and deliver it to Coke.” However, this doesn’t mean targeted ads won’t be implemented in the future.
As somebody that has dabbled more in the tech/ad side of things for the past year, I think the system is really cool and innovative. Why shouldn’t companies know how their brands are being represented? At the same time, it could come at the cost of privacy invasion for users simply sharing their content with friends. It’s a bit of a slippery moral slope; what do you think?
[via Mashable]