This was a surprise for me. I'm not sure what any of this means for Tumblr or WordPress.com customers, but I think it's an exciting development. I deleted my Tumblr account last year. I created a new Tumblr account upon reading the announcement.
Perhaps we'll get more Indieweb features such as Webmentions. Maybe Automattic will reprise Tumblr as a WordPress powered microblogging service similar to micro.blog. It's something a few people have suggested may be easy for Automattic to do. The Jetpack module, combined with the Conversations feature of the Reader service, would be an impressive service.
Tip-o-hat to Dennis.
UPDATE: Matt Mullenweg has a short post about the acquisition.
UPDATE 2: Some thoughts from VC Fred Wilson:
... Tumblr was both a blogging platform and a social media application and while I always loved the versatility of the platform, native mobile applications benefit from simplicity, not complexity.
There was a time around 2010 and 2011 when Tumblr was the most engaging social platform that I was on. I followed and met quite a few interesting people there and it was a lot of fun to be on it.
David Karp, the founder of Tumblr, always focused on making Tumblr a “positive” experience. That is why he refused to have comments, even though I pushed him to do it and hacked Tumblr by putting Disqus on mine. That is why he made the primary (only?) form of engagement a heart.
