Social media site Tumblr has announced that it will begin selling advertising from May 2, in spite of CEO David Karp’s previous criticisms of online ads.
According to BetaBeat, Karp made the announcement during a seven minute closing keynote speech at the AdAge Digital Conference in New York.
As recently as April 22, Karp stated that advertising would be a “complete last resort” for the social network, and had stated in previous interviews that the company was “pretty opposed to advertising”.
It has been suggested that Karp was confronted by investors at a recent board meeting with questions about whether the site would begin selling advertising, which may have been a factor in the decision.
Andrew Sadauskas is a former journalist at SmartCompany and a former editor of TechCompany.
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