Mark Wilson

Verizon is acquiring Yahoo for $4.83 billion in cash—and along with it, Tumblr, the Internet’s quirky link sharing network with 65 million users. To any fan of the service, the reaction may be something along the lines of, "What will happen to Tumblr? Will Verizon ruin it? Or worse, will it shutter it?" In reality, Tumblr may barely be on Verizon’s radar right now. Meanwhile, even though Yahoo stayed true to its promise to leave Tumblr alone after acquiring it for $1 billion in 2013, some Tumblr editors think the company should have done more to push the envelope and keep the service relevant.

Maybe the real hope for Tumblr under Verizon is that the network isn’t forgotten or left alone, but positioned as a relatively untapped source of revenue for Verizon—something that could contribute billions of dollars for Verizon each year rather than fall short of projections. Leveraging the full weight of AOL’s properties, Tumblr could become the social glue holding all of these services together. Verizon’s Facebook, if you will. And with more investment—maybe in the mixed-media experimentation we see Instagram, Snapchat, and countless other platforms embracing—Tumblr could become an irresistible app again, distributed across Verizon’s monstrous network of Internet, TV, and smartphones. If Verizon revamps the UX and sells the right ads, Tumblr could still become a juggernaut in its own right.

[Commentary] Google had just announced a new initiative called Material Design that promised to unify all Google products (and even third-party Android apps) under a common UX tongue. Google seemed to be morphing into something, but what?

With Material Design, Google has become a second reality inside touch-screen devices -- complete with its own rules of logic and physics -- and if Google has its way, it will eventually break free of touch screens to quite literally reshape the world around us. It's a series of services that have become our digital infrastructure.

And in the very near future, Google will exist, not as something you need to understand as "Chrome" or "Android," but as a conduit of information that's on just the right screen at just the right time.

[Wilson started Philanthroper.com]