The blogging platform Tumblr has been hinting at its intentions to join the fediverse. This is an open social network driven by the ActivityPub protocol. That has also been utilized by Mastodon, Threads, Flipboard, and other platforms, since 2022. The blogging platform owned by Automattic is now providing additional details regarding the potential date and method of that integration.
It turns out that the site’s intended migration to WordPress infrastructure will enable the present strategy to integrate Tumblr with the open social web.
Other open web interfaces, such as enabling Tumblr users to run additional custom plug-ins or themes. They may also be made possible by the transfer, the firm stated.
To make it easier for the company to create tools and features that functioned across both platforms. It enables Tumblr to benefit from the open-source advancements made by WordPress.org. Automattic announced last summer that it would migrate its half a billion blogs to WordPress.
Ultimately, putting Tumblr’s back end on WordPress would allow for higher efficiencies without altering the interface and experience that Tumblr’s user base has come to enjoy. Even though the WordPress community itself is in some turmoil.
Given the scope of the move, Automattic declined to provide an estimated completion date. But a company representative described the current state of affairs as “exciting.”
The company’s open social web connectors, which Tumblr stated were still in development in 2023, have sparked user curiosity. In a recent Q&A on Tumblr’s Work In Progress site, a user inquired about the company’s goals.
Here, Tumblr affirmed that supporting WordPress’s current ActivityPub plug-ins, which let blog owners sync their posts and engage with the larger open social web, would “for sure” be part of the migration process. That varied integration was “one big reason” for it.
Automattic did not, however, disclose if it would ever think about integrating with the AT Protocol. That runs Bluesky, another open social web player and a rapidly expanding social networking firm.
A spokesman would only discuss Bluesky’s ActivityPub progress. When asked directly how it would fit into these objectives.
