Tumblr

The platform will launch a live video feature on Tuesday according to a series of tweets, though the company has yet to make any formal announcements. Early word indicates that the new video component will include a series of live broadcasts and a user-facing feature for live streaming.

With Nike in tow, Tumblr is rolling out what appears to be its fanciest ad unit yet. Video-based and full screen-size, the “Sponsored Day” units give brands the power to take over users’ dashboards for a full 24 hours — from midnight to midnight. Appealing to a broader brand base, the “Sponsored Day” unit is the first to welcome marketers without an existing Tumblr blog.

Pop — a joint venture of CBS and Lionsgate that will take form as a new TV network launching in 2015 — will become the first TV network to build its primary Web presence on Tumblr. The mission of Pop, formerly TV Guide Network, is to celebrate “the fun of being a fan.”

A week after debuting its new video player, Tumblr announced the beta launch of in-stream auto-play video ads. Launch partners include Hulu, J.C. Penney, Lexus, Unilever’s Axe brand of products and Universal.

Yahoo chief Marissa Mayer’s $1 billion bet on Tumblr is undergoing a fresh wave of scrutiny thanks to a disgruntled investor, as well as persistent questions from marketers. But there are signs that the union may ultimately yield promising new mobile opportunities.

In a bid to expand its own audience, the social media and blogging site is reaching out to fans of certain shows through deals with the shows’ creators.

You may find more promos for new fall TV shows online these days than you will on your TV set. With the rise in social-media has come an intensification of TV-network efforts to inject their new programs into the pop-culture conversation. The new season is weeks away, with many of the broadcast networks not launching fall series until mid-to-late September, or even October. However, on Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram and Facebook, the freshman series of autumn are already striving to be seen and heard.

Yahoo is paying mostly cash for Tumblr, dipping into what remains of a $7.6 billion windfall reaped last year from selling about half of its stake in Chinese Internet company Alibaba Holdings Group. Taking over Tumblr will devour about one-fifth of the $5.4 billion in cash that Yahoo had in its accounts at the end of March.

The deal announced this morning represents CEO Marissa Mayer’s boldest move yet since she left Google 10 months ago to lead Yahoo’s latest comeback attempt. It marks Yahoo’s most expensive acquisition since the Sunnyvale, Calif., company bought online search engine Overture a decade ago for $1.3 billion in cash and stock.

Rachel Webber, Tumblr’s director of partnership development, talks about how Tumblr fits into the social TV ecosystem, networks doing a great job on Tumblr and best practices for launching and succeeding on the platform.

Bitly, the URL shortener of choice for most people, has analyzed its click-tracking data to find the optimal days and times for posting links to social media. The results show interesting, distinct patterns among Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr.

Tumblr officially rolled out its share button yesterday, joining the ranks of many other social platforms. True to Tumblr, the button can be adapted to share links, quotes, photos or embedded video, carrying over the source attribution. So with so many buttons out there, why should media organizations add them?

Tumblr is a relatively unexplored world for media organizations — especially in television — but there’s a new TV station giving Tumblr a try. KABC just debuted this Tumblr a few days ago with the goal to provide “insight to the newsroom and give you the latest Southern California news.”