Tumblr Inks Deal to Allow Ditto to Scan Your Photos for Clues About What Brands You Use

Update: Major changes have been made after learning a majority of the online coverage of this updated was incorrect.

Tumblr users post approximately 130 million photos every day. And starting this week, they will begin to sort through every single one of them for various brands and items, with the help of Ditto Labs.

The Yahoo-owned social media platform and Ditto are officially signing a deal this week that will help Tumblr take advantage of the unfathomable amount of images shared on its services every day. Specifically, the technology Ditto owns will allow Tumblr to analyze photos posted by users and draw out brand-related data.

This means, if someone shares an image with a pair of Beats headphones, Nike shoe, Starbucks drink or Canon camera, Ditto’s technology will be able to pinpoint the products, more effectively defining demographics for advertisers. However, according to T.R. Newcomb, head of business development at Tumblr, “right now, we’re not planning to do anything ad-related.”

Rather, they’re going to use the data pulled from the images to then sell to companies who want to see how their products are being used and received by Tumblr users. “If Coke wants to understand the nature of the conversation [about them on Tumblr] Ditto can sift through and deliver it to Coke,” Newcomb says.

While smaller operations such as Ditto have been doing this for quite some time on social media, the Yahoo-owned social network appears to be the first to ink an official deal, integrating it more thoroughly than anyone else.

(via Mashable)

Update: we initially reported that Tumblr would be partnering with Ditto to gain access to their image-analysis. We have been informed this is incorrect. Rather, Tumblr’s inking of the deal is simply giving Ditto access to their images. Tumblr will not be scanning through your images, nor will it be selling the information. Tumblr will continue to operate as it has.