Tumblr @ FIT!

That's right David! FASHION AT FIT!!

This afternoon FIT was privileged to host David Karp, the founder of Tumblr! With him came his incredible fashion director Rich Tong. Together these two gave a short presentation and a long Q&A with our students covering everything from the story of it all, to the current growth and INTERNSHIPS!!

Who doesn't?

 First of all a big thank you to FIT's Direct and Interactive Marketing club for organizing the event, and a congratulations to them for a successful first of many lecture series! Continued after the jump.

Tumblr was never supposed to become what it is today. David Karp's original concept was only to create a better platform for himself to be able to blog and really do the things on his blog that he wanted to do! Eventually though the platform opened up to others, where he saw an extremely talented design community take it places he could have never imagined! Eventually the concept came to make it go public, financial backers have of course allowed it to turn into a huge thing, and today Tumblr has over 16 million blogs, with over 70 million people trafficking those blogs!

After a while, Rich Tong was brought in to consult, and that is when David realized that fashion was making up 18% of the the top 1000 Tumblr blogs!! Meaning Rich's role at the company would continue to grow. Now having a tight-knit relationship with Tumblr blogs such as Oscar PR Girl, and more, Rich has been able to incorporate the growing fashion community into a larger Tumblr picture.

David Karp and Rich Tong, Q&A!

Great things are coming to Tumblr as well! David reported that very soon we will be able to have COUNTS!! As in, how many people are viewing our content, both on our blogs, and others blogs!! As well as possible growth in the Creative Writing and Film making communities. On a personal note, I was able to advocate for a more journalistic Humanitarian community to develop. Something he really admired and has begun working out, though it involves a lot of protection of these journalists traveling to parts of the world with unrest.

Pictured here with the Direct & Interactive Marketing club!!

Overall David and Rich gave a fantastic presentation and Q&A for the amazing company we all love! As for INTERNSHIPS: they are looking within the FIT community first before elsewhere, so keep an eye out for e-mails from the Internship Center, or feel free to keep an eye out on Tumblr for any postings that may come up!

Xoxo Rony