Since 2022, running a blog web site Tumblr has been teasing its plans to combine with the fediverse — the open social net powered by the protocol ActivityPub additionally utilized by Mastodon, Threads, Flipboard, and others. Now, the Automattic-owned running a blog platform is sharing extra details about when and the way that integration may truly occur.
Because it seems, the present plan to tie Tumblr into the open social net will come about by means of the positioning’s deliberate transfer to the WordPress infrastructure.
Automattic confirmed to TechCrunch that when the migration is full, each Tumblr person will be capable of federate their weblog by way of ActivityPub, simply as each WordPress.com person can at the moment.
The corporate famous that the migration may additionally permit for different open net integrations, like giving Tumblr customers a option to run different customized plug-ins or themes.
Final summer season, Automattic introduced it might transfer its half a billion blogs to WordPress, to make it simpler for the corporate to construct instruments and options that labored throughout each companies, whereas additionally permitting Tumblr to benefit from the open supply developments from WordPress.org.
Although the WordPress group itself is in a state of upheaval, in the end operating Tumblr’s again finish on WordPress would permit for larger efficiencies, whereas not altering the interface and expertise that Tumblr’s person base has grown to like.
Automattic declined to share a time-frame as to when the migration can be full, given its scale, however a rep for the corporate known as the progress thus far “thrilling.”
Customers have been curious in regards to the state of the corporate’s open social net integrations, which Tumblr stated in 2023 have been nonetheless being labored on. Just lately, one person requested in regards to the firm’s plans in a Q&A on Tumblr’s Work In Progress blog. Right here, Tumblr confirmed that fediverse integration was “one massive motive” for the migration itself, and that it might “for certain” embody assist for WordPress’ present ActivityPub plug-ins, which permit weblog homeowners to sync their posts and take part within the wider open social net.
Nevertheless, Automattic declined to share if it would at any level contemplate integration with the AT Protocol, which powers the rising social networking startup Bluesky, one other open social net participant.
When requested particularly about how Bluesky would possibly match into these plans, a spokesperson would solely touch upon its ActivityPub progress.