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Is tumblr still relevant?
According to their stats page, they have 135 million monthly active users: https://www.tumblr.com/press , about a third of what either Reddit or Twitter claims.

I'm also willing to bet that they have a measurably lower proportion of bots than most other social networks, if only because the perception that Tumblr is irrelevant makes them less attractive as a target.

unfortunately, there are many, many bots.
Bot spam on Tumblr is rampant even if you don't have many followers or post much.
Anecdata: I have few followers, directly post maybe once every couple of months if that, reblog a few posts a week, and I have no problem with bot spam posts - can't say that I even remember seeing one.

Bot spam followers on the other hand, yeah, a couple a week, but since I don't follow or interact with them, there's no issue.

Around 80% of my (admittedly very small number of) followers are bots, mostly poorly masquerading as women, and advertising porn sites.

They usually seem to unfollow after a week or two though, especially after I block them.

There are bots, but at least for those who (like me) don't have a lot of "real" followers, they're pretty easy to catch, report, and block when they first follow you. (Having never had large numbers of followers, I can't speak for the experience there.)
I think it's relevant to specific social circles. If you're a huge fan of some media, any media, tumblr is probably a solid bet of engaging with fellow fans in ways reddit isn't as good at.
they're currently under the stewardship of the company that makes WordPress. I'd say it's in good hands today.
You can put someone whose brain has been lobotomized into the care of the nicest person on the planet, they'll still be in a bad place overall.
this is the weirdest forced metaphor
Given what's happening to twitter, is being relevant a good thing now (if it ever was?)

From what I can tell, tumblr users think 'no.'

(I am inclined to agree)

No. Check again when they implement ActivityPub.
Yes. At least, for certain subcultures, it's The Place to be right now.
TIL!

I have noticed some people sharing their porn and erotica on Tumblr again, but I thought they were just playing cat and mouse with the content filter

I really missed that Verizon got rid of it and its now in saner hands.

This checkmark parody is hilarious and apparently Verizon didn't delete my erotica feed, just hid it and now I can appeal all of those decisions to restore them! wow

My understanding is that any depiction of sex-acts and most depictions of genitals are still against the rules of tumblr (due to iOS requirements?) ?
that's what I read too

I can proudly report that all my post appeals were accepted with the simple appeal of "reverse verdict from the verizon dark days"

and they accepted all of those and added a "community label" of Mature

they are by default hidden on iOS app but can be shown with a tap

I don't know if it's still relevant, but it's the only social media app I still check every day. I only lurk now, I followed some people years and years ago, and they still come up with amusement daily.

Adverts aren't too overloaded (Although I'm clearly not in their demographic anymore, as an older gent, I exclusively get adverts for blue pills, I don't think they have much of a pool targeting me), it still posts new posts from people I follow chronologically.

Define "relevant".

Tumblr is never going to be The Next <insert many-billion dollar social network here>, but it does have a road to profitability and long-term sustainability now that it's being run by people who at least vaguely understand and respect its userbase.

It's not a world-enveloping thing like the major social media platforms (and it's not going to be) but it has a good number of active users and I enjoy it more than the alternatives.
While I'm sure people did pay for it to be in on the joke, this

> The app additionally saw a flood of new installs after Twitter’s acquisition, which may have contributed to higher consumer spending.

seems like an equally likely cause for revenue increase. Tumblr's parody verification feature launched right as the site's name was being thrown around for the first time in a while as a possible place for users to move to, should Twitter go belly up.

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I have sixteen of the tumblr Verification checkmarks.

I bought some myself as a joke, and then folks gifted me more.

They are just the funniest possible UI choice—they look so broken, they become beautiful.

Hey, Joe Hills in the Wild! Fancy seeing you here.

I fully agree, the checkmarks are hilarious.

How can you have sixteen of them if you are the sole tumblr user?
It's cumulative, every time you buy you get two checkmarks, and the more you buy (or get gifted) the more you get. You get a lot of checkmarks next to your username.
I would pay to get a check mark here on hackernews, it would help build my brand as an engineer.
Unicode checkmarks when??
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I don't like the ambiguity whether "increased 125%" represents that their revenue has increased 25%, or whether their revenue is now 225% compared to previously. After skimming through the article, I still have no definitive idea. It is probably the former, since they mention

> given the slight bump in revenue

This manner of presenting multiples I've noticed most prominently in Apple marketing copy, and is terribly abhorrent, in my opinion, due to its ambiguity (notice the relative clarity when I say "their revenue has increased 25%"). The article also uses the latter sense when they say

> Sensor Tower says the in-app purchase revenue on iOS is up 19%

Agreed. Statements like those really need a preposition: A “by” or “to” would really help.
By definition it is 225% of what it was before.

Otherwise “increased 1%” means “massive drop”

It's not confusing or ambiguous, it's just incorrect. 125% increase means 2.25x multiple. There is no ambiguity whatsoever. It never means 1.25x.

The fact that the article seems to use it to mean a 25% increase just highlights that TechCrunch has bad writers and no editors.

> The fact that the article seems to use it to mean a 25% increase just highlights

that from the reader's point of view it's always confusing and ambiguous.

It’s the inconsistency that makes the real revenue change unclear. 125% increase can only mean 1 thing.
I wish that were true; for example, https://www.apple.com/iphone-14-pro/

> A display that’s up to 2x brighter in the sun.

if you click the arrow to look more, it elaborates

> For those bright, sunshiny days, the Super Retina XDR display now reaches a peak of 2000 nits outdoors — that’s twice as bright as before

whereas "up to 2x brighter" ought to mean (according to you, and my wishes) thrice as bright. If you look through the rest of the marketing copy, Apple consistently uses such language.

- This car goes twice as fast as the other one == 100% faster.

- My stock went up 100% == I doubled my money.

It’s not ambiguous. Apple uses correct grammar.

> Apple uses correct grammar.

“2x as bright” or “twice as bright” is correct. “2x brighter” is not the same. Apple uses both.

People reading along should ask themselves: How bright is 1x brighter?
IMO, the 'x' changes it. 1x is 1 x the other number, x meaning multiplication.
1x brighter is an oxymoron, it cannot be 1x as bright and also be described as brighter. 1x as bright means same brightness.

#x implies multiplication (from the mathematical notation of multiplication, ×, which looks like the letter X). 1×a = a.

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I'm guessing there's a good reason they express this revenue increase in relative and not absolute numbers.
How can someone report on this topic and not include a screenshot of what it looks like? It's literally the only thing I expected to see.