Tumblr revolutionises app release notes with David Karp's rippling muscles

Blogging social network Tumblr had a problem. When you release an update to a mobile app on Apple’s app store, you have to include release notes: a short update of what has changed since the last version.

But release notes are boring. And they’re particularly boring when they don’t actually contain much more than bug fixes.

So Tumblr came up with a solution: what if, instead of release notes, there was some batshit fanfic about the company’s own chief executive, David Karp?

No, wait, hear me out. Because it’s amazing:

‘4.3?’ roared David Karp across the boardroom table. He spun on his heels, turning his back to the board. His shoulder muscles rippled through his gingham shirt.

‘4.3? We can do better than that. We HAVE to do better than that.’

The boardroom broke into murmurs. They had done everything right with 4.3. The entire company, top to bottom, had signed off on it. The research was there. It was focus-grouped for 10 months straight. It was a sure-fire hit.

Skip to the end:

He spun again, now facing outward onto the city he loved. From every street rose a memory. Lexington Avenue, where he learned to ride a bike, and where he got his first broken arm (Maury, who owned the bagel store, came running out when it happened. Good old Maury). Bleecker Street, where he got his first kiss, and saw his first real rock’n’roll show. The Velvet Underground. A sound so raw and real it could only come out of NYC. Finally, he looked down directly on to the street below. The street on which he’d built his business … no, not his business – his dreams. Below was a street on which the creative passions of millions of users had stacked up into a 431-storey skyscraper that housed the collective energy of Tumblr.

David Karp pressed his nose against the glass and looked deep down into the canyon of 431st Street. Four-three-one. That’s when it hit him.

“Four-three-one. That’s it. Version 4.3.1. That’s what we’ve gotta do. Version 4.3.1 of the Tumblr app for iOS.”

Even better? There never was a version 4.3 of the Tumblr app. For whatever reason, the company decided to skip a whole version and just go straight to 4.31. And for lack of any other explanation, we must take it on trust that it’s because Karp was standing on the 431st street of Manhattan’s 220-street grid. Go figure.