Since 2022, blogging site Tumblr has been teasing its plans to integrate with the fediverse — the open social web powered by the protocol ActivityPub also used by Mastodon, Threads, Flipboard, and others. Now, the Automattic-owned blogging platform is sharing more information about when and how that integration could actually happen.
As it turns out, the current plan to tie Tumblr into the open social web will come about by way of the site’s planned move to the WordPress infrastructure.
Automattic confirmed to TechCrunch that when the migration is complete, every Tumblr user will be able to federate their blog via ActivityPub, just as every WordPress.com user can today.
The company noted that the migration could also allow for other open web integrations, like giving Tumblr users a way to run other custom plug-ins or themes.
Last summer, Automattic announced it would move its half a billion blogs to WordPress, to make it easier for the company to build tools and features that worked across both services, while also allowing Tumblr to take advantage of the open source developments from WordPress.org.
Though the WordPress community itself is in a state of upheaval, ultimately running Tumblr’s back end on WordPress would allow for greater efficiencies, while not changing the interface and experience that Tumblr’s user base has grown to love.
Automattic declined to share a time frame as to when the migration would be complete, given its scale, but a rep for the company called the progress so far “exciting.”
Users have been curious about the state of the company’s open social web integrations, which Tumblr said in 2023 were still being worked on. Recently, one user asked about the company’s plans in a Q&A on Tumblr’s Work In Progress blog. Here, Tumblr confirmed that fediverse integration was “one big reason” for the migration itself, and that it would “for sure” include support for WordPress’ existing ActivityPub plug-ins, which allow blog owners to sync their posts and participate in the wider open social web.
However, Automattic declined to share if it will at any point consider integration with the AT Protocol, which powers the growing social networking startup Bluesky, another open social web participant.
When asked specifically about how Bluesky might fit into these plans, a spokesperson would only comment on its ActivityPub progress.
