30 Things You Didn't Know About Tumblr

Learn more about your favorite microblogging site.

June 17, 2013

Image via Complex Original

There has been a lot of buzz around Tumblr recently, mostly thanks to Yahoo!'s $1.1 billion acquisition of the company a few weeks ago. There's almost no doubt that the microblogging network's price tag was worth it. There's no avoiding the obvious: Tumblr's huge, and it's only going to get bigger. But, what's happened behind the scenes; how did Tumblr and its founder, David Karp, get to this point? Here are 30 things you didn't know about your favorite microblogging service. Now tumble that.

And for more on the Tumblr CEO, read our online cover story here, David Karp: Leader of the New School.

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30 Things You Didn't Know About Tumblr

Learn more about your favorite microblogging site.

After Tumblr's launch in February 2007, it only took two weeks for it to reach 75,000 users.

As of May 2013, Tumblr hosts over 115.9 million blogs through its service.

David Karp says he owes much of his success to luck, but mostly his parents: "[They] either pushed me or set me up to find my way."

2-4 percent of Tumblr's traffic is adult content related.

Tumblr's first major brand advertising campaign was with Adidas in June 2012, when they launched an official soccer Tumblr blog.

The company bought the App Store app Tumblerette in 2009, and they released their official iPhone app shortly after.

Karp discovered a passion for code writing when he "found AOL" at age 11.

Karp dropped out of Bronx High School of Science at age 14, at the advice from his mother.

Tumblr is available in 12 different languages.

Tumblr became the first blogging site to host President Barack Obama's blog in 2011.

Tumblr is number 20 on America's most visited sites list, according to Quantcast.

Tumblr's kitchen area is positioned in the middle of the office.

A Tumblr employee uses this old school computer (pictured above) to write his own terminal applications.

One of David Karp's first gigs was at UrbanBaby, an Internet message board for parents.

72.8 million posts are created on Tumblr each day, as of May 2013.

A majority of Tumblr's users are Hispanic and Asian.

Tumblr's headquarters are not in Silicon Valley but in New York City's Flatiron district.

There have been 53.1 billion Tumblr blog posts created since 2007.

Tumblr currently has 186 employees.

Employees at Tumblr drink out of Tumblr branded mugs.

The "We are the 99%" Tumblr blog became the slogan for the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Lady Gaga, Zooey Deschanel and John Mayer all have personal Tumblr blogs.

The site went through a chain letter scam that claimed 130,000 victims in May 2011.

Before the Yahoo! purchase, Tumblr had received about $125 million of funding from investors.

Tumblr is most popular with the teen and college-aged users. Half of Tumblr's users are under the age of 25.

In April 2013, Tumblr received more than 13 billion global page views.

Tumblr launched Storyboard in 2012, a platform where they promoted other Tumblr blogs--until Tumblr shut it down and let go of the editors right before the Yahoo! sale a year later.

Tumblr's kitchen refrigerator is covered with letters from site users.

The Tumblr office adopted Tommy, an 11-year-old Pomeranian.

Though Tumblr sold to Yahoo! for $1.1 billion, David Karp is "only" expected to get $250 million.

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