I've switched from wordpress to posterous to tumblr. I like Tumblr's lack of branded drop down button that Posterous has even on self hosted, custom themes. Photographer Terry's Diary is a minimal Tumblr powered blog thats pretty interesting - http://www.terrysdiary.com (mildly NSFW)
Wait - I see two buttons on all Tumblr sites: one that says "+ Follow" and one that says "Join Tumblr". Is this something that I'm in a bucket test on or does it go away if you're logged or something?
I don't think they ever directly called Tumblr a dying platform. The dig seemed aimed more towards Ning, which was the first platform they supported, and could reasonably be called dying for people who want a free blogging platform, as could several of the other platforms.
The HN comments about the campaign seem to do more to further a catfight than the original blog post did in the first place.
I think behind all this competition from the blogging platforms there is a realisation that at the core their offerings are quiet similar because of the nature of blogging.
It certainly isn't a internet startup area where there is going to be to much innovation given that to many features and you lose the people wanting a simple solution and end up competing with self hosted wordpress for more serious bloggers.
All these other blogging services sometimes forget the basics: People write because they want to be appreciated. Tumblr has very good 'appreciation' and 'feel good' triggers in there. So it grows.
I'm still trying to figure out this "quick blogging" phenomenon (and microblogging also), having no desire or apparently no inclination to do either of them.
I looked around the tumblr directory at some blogs and I didn't find anything that wasn't just glossy regurgitated content. Not one held my attention for even a second.
Anyway this article helped me out understanding tumblr (and how it contrasts with posterous)
Someday soon I'll need to do a little blogging. Can anybody recommend something easy to use but not so gimmicky as tumblr or posterous? I'll probably want a nice way to format code, and probably a comment section. I'm a developer and not afraid to get my hands dirty but I'd rather have something self hosted because I'm not interested a potential cracking vulnerability I'd get hosting my own.
I think most people are just predisposed to share. Tumblr lets you do this quite easily and intuitively. Not everybody gets it of course.
I think if I were to itemize the features that Tumblr does really well:
1. Feedback gratification. I can't think of any other way to describe it. The 'like' function lets you get instant feedback on what you shared, whether it's original content or reblogged content. The reblog function gives you even more gratification because it means what you posted was cool enough to be reposted. Works great for attention-hungry teens (or people in general.) This can get out of control when tumblrs decide they want to flame someone, multiple reblogs that escalate in online dickery sometimes ensues.
2. Tumblr not only lets you share content, it gives you things TO share through its ability to let you 'follow' other users and 'reblog' their content/posts.
3. The tumblr timeline is like twitter on crack. Imagine an endless scroll of content. Funny stuff, serious stuff, links, images, porn, name it. The dashboard gives an very easy way to reply to a post, like a post and/or reblog it. (when I reblog a post, I make it a point to 'like' it, for example)
4. On that, tumblr's got a pretty liberal policy on nudity, pornography, etc. I'm surprised porn sites have not jumped on this yet. The Suicide Girls, for example, have a tumblr, and their content gets reblogged a lot and consistently.
5. Tumblr's also got a generally cool attitude towards its users. No condescension, and their staff have their own tumblr blogs that are snarky and pretty funny.
6. Tumblr activities. This is something they've got over just about everyone except twitter. Tumblr users create activities (one pretty fun one is 'topless tuesdays, I'll let ya'll figure that one out.) that many tumblr bloggers participate in, creating massive amounts of content.
That's just a few of the things that have made tumblr fun. I'm basically on it all day, and have it set to send my posts to twitter. Great way to find content, share content, and just dick around online.
If you're going with self-hosted Wordpress, I'd also recommend putting it on a separate machine and ideally on a separate network from your other machines, so that they aren't compromised when your blog gets hacked.
I completely understand the appeal of "quick blogging" like Tumblr and DailyBooth (for photos) for mainstream folks. Both are serving the masses i.e. people who have a lot to say, but don't necessarily have the substance to back themselves up.
They can quickly and easily post their thoughts to the world and get the instant feedback they need to feel heard in the form of hearts, pageviews, reblogs, photo comments, regular comments, etc. The feedback acts like a drug. All you need is a taste and you're hooked. If you don't get enough then you'll bother your friends to "please heart/comment/etc, my post". The act of asking and then receiving this drug is what keeps people interested. And that cycle never ends.
Tumblr (as much as I respect the hell out of the business they're making) is somewhat detrimental to people. I've seen it suck up peoples' lives like World of Warcraft or another game. I guess the same could be said of Facebook, MySpace, and others, though. Sorry for the harsh reality check.
“While I am sure that there has always been a tempt for people to spend their time on insecurity work, new technology and ubiquitous online access has made it easier now than ever before. Data that COULD make you feel more at ease is now always at your finger tips. Much like a drug that promises instant gratification. And therefore, we always have a desire to access it - again and again. Why? Because, deep down inside, we are always wondering what we are missing. We want to feel safe.”
— Reduce Your Level of Insecurity Work (http://the99percent.com/tips/5810/reduce-your-level-of-insec...)
I can't figure this out either. A friend actually blogs on tumblr, and I find the lack of obvious comments really irritating (even after she said she turned comments on). I guess it's the design, per the Ars article.
* I'm a developer and not afraid to get my hands dirty but I'd rather have something self hosted because I'm not interested a potential cracking vulnerability I'd get hosting my own.*
Are you looking for "quick blogging"? If so - I can't help. I don't see the point either.
For more standard software typo, drupal, blogspot and wordpress are not bad (probably try them in that order). I don't know that typo or drupal have dedicated hosting, but wordpress and blogspot do.
Tumblr isn't necessarily quick blogging all the time. There is a poetry community for example. You friend the people that provide the content you want, just like on twitter.
I'm still trying to figure out this "quick blogging" phenomenon (and microblogging also), having no desire or apparently no inclination to do either of them.
It's a useful medium for people who are primarily curators rather than writers. Consider Dan Gruber's Daring Fireball, for example.
Ive always wondered, how do they bring in revenue? Do they at all? I currently use at least 4 tumblr blogs and Im not paying them so where is the money going to be made up after they run out of funding?
Some of the Services require payment of fees. Subscriber shall pay all applicable fees, as described on the Site in connection with such Services selected by Subscriber. Tumblr reserves the right to change its pricing and to institute new charges at any time, upon ten (10) days prior notice to Subscriber, which will be posted on the Site and e-mailed to Subscriber along with a link to the modified fee schedule so that you can review it. Use of the Services by Subscriber following such notification constitutes Subscriber's acceptance of any new or increased charges.
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Or, it could just be that they're making money by raising it from VCs.
Tumblr actually built out a feature set that was to be called "Tumblr Plus" ala Vimeo. This included group blogs and many other features that have since been released in the past year.
Ultimately, Tumblr's venture capitalists (including Fred Wilson) encouraged them to release those features as part of the free product and continue to focus on growth rather than monetization.
"Wilson added that 'some businesses should be allowed to scale and that takes capital — going for revenues and profits too early in some businesses is a mistake.'"
DDG: http://duckduckgo.com/?q=iirc
Gives me an IRC server written in Java - which didn't expect to be of use for Tumblr; Interactive Illinois Report Card which doesn't make any sense. I also checked google.. typed in define:IIRC and then I actually got the result of "if i remember correctly", but by then my brain had become so sure that it was some sort of technology that I dismissed that result right away.
Well, you can call me stupid or a bad researcher, but it was an honest question which was asked after I had honestly tried to find the answer to in another manner.
Yes it does. And I find myself re-searching in Google about 30% of the time. But for semi-common search terms you get the result right there on the page, instead of having to click through to another page - and sometime something interesting even pops up.
But I also want to give another search engine a shot and since it's hard to get people to switch engines, I figured I didn't want to be like the old guy from Frasier who always needs to have his ugly-ass chair just because his brain is so used to it.
That's all fine, but when will the Dashboard get decent loading times? I know you're supposed to be a cool kid & email your blog entries, but I don't like what that does with line breaks.
I'd like to see a nicer way to read followed blogs. The Dashboard bundles everything together, and each site loses its design and identity (which a big part of what makes Tumblr great).
I've noticed a trend where some high traffic blogs have trouble keeping the lights on and are switching over to tumblr for their bandwidth capabilities and collaboration capabilities.
Yup, in the 6 days since the blog post you cite, they've grown by hundreds of millions of monthly page views...fueled entirely by their announced support of Oauth.
