Tumblr iOS Revenue Increased 125% Since Launching Its Parody of Paid Verification

Tumblr's parody of paid verification has already delivered the social network and blogging platform a 125% boost in iOS in-app purchase revenue since November, according to a new analysis of the app's in-app consumer spending. TechCrunch reports: The company, now operated by WordPress.com owner Automattic following its 2019 acquisition, launched its response to Twitter's paid verification hustle with the addition of its own purely cosmetic double blue checks -- a sort of tongue-in-cheek rebuttal to the idea that subscription-based verification had any real value. As it turns out, at least some Tumblr users were willing to pay -- though perhaps not for clout, but because in-jokes have proven to be a more successful monetization strategy for the blogging network than some of its more legitimate attempts to make money, such as its creator-focused subscription, Post+. After being met with community backlash, at one point Post+ was being outperformed from a monetization perspective by crabs -- a goofy paid feature that let users send animated dancing crabs to each other's dashboards. According to new data from app intelligence firm Sensor Tower provided to TechCrunch, consumer spending on Tumblr's iOS app increased since November 2022's double-blue check launch, now totaling $263,000 in net revenue. While that's not a significant figure in the grand scheme of things by any means, it still represents a 125% jump in spending compared with the prior three-month total of August through October 2022. When looking at more long-term trends, Tumblr's revenue remains up -- but not by as much. Sensor Tower says the in-app purchase revenue on iOS is up 19%, compared with the prior ten months ahead of the blue check's launch (January through October 2022).

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