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The design of Tumblr, the blogging tool and social network, is guided by feeling. In particular, the feelings of David Karp, the company’s 26-year-old founder, whose instincts tend to run counter to current Web conventions. Tumblr does not display “follower” counts, for example, or other numerical markers of popularity that are viewed as crucial social-media features, because Karp finds them “really gross.” The culture of public friend-and-follow reciprocity that theoretically expands a social networking service can, in his view, “really poison a whole community.”

A lawyer made redundant during the economic downturn has had her benefits suspended – because she earns cents a day from her personal food blog.

Twitter is most interested in striking distribution partnerships with big Internet and media companies, not in being acquired or striking an advertising deal, says company director Fred Wilson.