Tumblr lays off editorial team behind Storyboard

Tumblr has shown the door to the editorial team behind the pretty successful Storyboard service that covered Tumblr’s blogs and communities. The year-old blog is now shutting down as a result and Tumblr says this had to happen because Storyboard had “run its course”.

In a blog post announcing the end of the Storyboard service, Tumblr wrote, “After hundreds of stories and videos, features by publishers ranging from Time to MTV to WNYC—not to mention a nomination for a James Beard Award and entries into this year’s NY Press Club Awards—we couldn’t be happier with our team’s effort. And as Tumblr continues to evolve, we’ll always be experimenting with new ways to shine light on our creators.”

The focus for the editors of Storyboard was to cover Tumblr as a “living, breathing community.” The team tried to show the world the creators behind some of Tumblr’s most famous blogs and showcase them in a different light.

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Goodbye, Storyboard

The news of Tumblr’s editorial team’s being axed came as a bit of a shock to not just the followers but also to the team itself, some emotional posts prove. Executive Editor Jessica Bennett took to Twitter to make the announcement. “RIP @Tumblr Editorial. Yeah, for realizes,” she wrote from her handle @jess7bennett. Editor in Chief Chris Mohney quoted the announcement in his Tumblr and signed off with, “Hey looks like I got some free time coming up. Let me know if you want to hang out!”

The news about Storyboard comes not long after a Bloomberg report revealed that Tumblr was expected to reach profitability in 2013. Advertising on the six-year-old blogging website is taking off and it is finally expected to introduce mobile advertising.

Lee Brown, Head of Sales for Tumblr, said that the average advertising purchase on the service is now just under six figures. “We expect that the monetization will lead us to profitability this year,” he said.

Last month, the blogging platform also announced that it was now home to 100 million blogs. In April last year, it was revealed that the site had reached the milestone of hosting 50 million blogs. The recent surge in Tumblr’s popularity has ensured that it has doubled in the number of blogs in almost less than a year.

So while Tumblr is racing ahead in terms of blog numbers as well as profit, it looks like the service needed to cut corners somewhere. Unfortunately, Storyboard seemed to be on the wrong side of this decision.