Why Tumblr is kicking Posterous's ass • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Tumblr is kicking Posterous's ass

#41

Post by BigDamnDeal » Tue, Jan 19, 2010, 9:21 PM UTC

pegobry wrote: post #30

3pt14159 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From Compete - yearly change: tumblr: +184.36% posterous: +297.36% So, uh, even with the last 3 months in posterous is still growing faster than tumblr. If it were a stock its valuation would have increased more than tumblr. Also, wouldn't there definitely be less hits to posterous based on the fact that you EMAIL posts in rather than sign in? That being said, the tumblr landing experience is probably one of the reas…

Great points. I'll incorporate them into the post. It's growing faster from a smaller base, though. I find more relevant that Tumblr is still much, much bigger. And I think it will stay that way.

One way to normalize this is to ask: How quickly was Tumblr growing when it was as small as Posterous is now? Then you're comparing apples to apples.

Re: Why Tumblr is kicking Posterous's ass

#42

Post by BigDamnDeal » Tue, Jan 19, 2010, 9:22 PM UTC

jamiequint wrote: post #40

"You can’t just engineer anymore. You have to design" is bullshit. Design is a tool, you still have to measure its results, pretty is not equal to better. You can really see this if you look at the history of direct mail, some of the best performing mailers ever were pretty ugly. (source: http://www.amazon.com/Million-Dollar-Mailings-Dension-Hatch/... )

If you read past the first paragraph, he explains how the design goes far beyond "pretty". He explicitly says that "pretty" is not the point.

Re: Why Tumblr is kicking Posterous's ass

#43

Post by BigDamnDeal » Tue, Jan 19, 2010, 9:28 PM UTC

pegobry wrote: post #14

patio11 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was my impression at first glance, but look at his description of the steps involved in signing up with a three element form versus signing up via email, and ignore the sarcasm for a second. His conclusion is correct and would not have occurred to me absent reading the article.

Thanks. Am I trolling? I don't think so, insofar as I use a provocative example to illustrate trends that I do think are important: the coming of age of New York as a startup hub and as a "school" for building consumer startups, and the growing importance of design vs. "hard" technology in building a successful consumer web app.

I'm coming at this as another blogger who makes a living off of writing out my opinions, and from that angle, you're not trolling, just offering a strong opinion. You truly believe Tumblr is kicking Posterous's ass (the mildest possible "swear word"!) and you present your case with evidence, not appeals to emotion or coolness. And now you're perfecting the article based on feedback, which is one of the coolest aspects of blogging and interacting with your readers.

So because of this piece, I'm following your blog. Please continue to rock.

Re: Why Tumblr is kicking Posterous's ass

#44

Post by BigDamnDeal » Tue, Jan 19, 2010, 9:30 PM UTC

jacobbijani wrote: post #38

mnemonicsloth wrote: post #12

Looking at the Tumblr landing page on a touchscreen PC makes me feel like someone is trying to tell me "MASH THE BUTTON WITH YOUR PALM TO MAKE IT GO." It's probably just because I'm not who Tumblr is for, of course. But it's still interesting to ask: can you overdo design simplicity?

How else are you supposed to use a touchscreen PC?

Shh, Jacob, get out of here, we're talking about your stuff!

Re: Why Tumblr is kicking Posterous's ass

#45

Post by BigDamnDeal » Tue, Jan 19, 2010, 9:33 PM UTC

alexro wrote: post #20

I agree with your take on mindset. But eyeballs isn't what makes the company successful in the end, the revenue does. And who has/will have more revenue is an open question for now. Personally I'd put on Posterous.

I'd argue that Tumblr, by focusing on the social, has opened itself to a wider variety of possible revenue sources. They could succeed at social advertising where Facebook has failed. (Not that Facebook doesn't make money, just that they do it while looking like idiots to users who see mismatched contextual ads.)

Re: Why Tumblr is kicking Posterous's ass

#46

Post by blasdel » Tue, Jan 19, 2010, 10:01 PM UTC

mnemonicsloth wrote: post #12

Looking at the Tumblr landing page on a touchscreen PC makes me feel like someone is trying to tell me "MASH THE BUTTON WITH YOUR PALM TO MAKE IT GO." It's probably just because I'm not who Tumblr is for, of course. But it's still interesting to ask: can you overdo design simplicity?

The fingers you have used to dial are too fat, to obtain a special dialing wand please mash the keypad with your palm now

Re: Why Tumblr is kicking Posterous's ass

#47

Post by jasonoliver » Wed, Jan 20, 2010, 6:33 AM UTC

pegobry wrote: post #35

brlewis wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His advice might help the way you speak too. Courtesy is not sugarcoating. He noticed some good engineering in your writing, but if you want to reach people maybe your words need better design.

That was hilarious. I'll keep it in mind.

you use the word insofar a lot.

Re: Why Tumblr is kicking Posterous's ass

#48

Post by jasonoliver » Wed, Jan 20, 2010, 6:36 AM UTC

pegobry wrote: post #16

karzeem wrote: post #10

There seems to be a contradiction in his argument. He talks a lot about the signup pages, focusing on what he guesses is Tumblr's much higher conversion rate and the reasons for why that conversion rate is high. Shortly thereafter, he lays into Posterous for being too metrics-driven. How could a company that's too metrics-driven let themselves get crushed (again, according to the author's guess) on something as impor…

The signup pages are an example of a broader mindset which is different at Tumblr and at Posterous and which in turn, to me, exemplifies broader trends for startups. That's what I think is interesting. I'm not saying startups should not be metrics-driven. Design and engineering are both driven by metrics. But they're different mindsets. And in this case, one is clearly winning. You're also right that the zero-sum fal…

you also seem to suggest that they are directly competing with each other. i use both tumblr and posterous, but i would venture a guess that many many posterous users would never ever consider using tumblr, while many tumblr users would never ever consider any form of transportation other than the fixed gear bike or any type of pants other than the skinny jeans.

Re: Why Tumblr is kicking Posterous's ass

#49

Post by kevintwohy » Wed, Jan 20, 2010, 6:57 AM UTC

To be honest I found this post pretty annoyingly reductive.

The essential thesis seems to be: 'I personally speculate that the design of Tumblr's signup page is better, ERGO Tumblr is kicking Posterous' ass.'

There are a lot of words in there, but none of them actually help link premise -> conclusion.

Re: Why Tumblr is kicking Posterous's ass

#50

Post by billclerico » Wed, Jan 20, 2010, 7:26 AM UTC

pg wrote: post #21

This reminds me of the article posted here recently about the locations of ancient Woolworth's stores. If you'd written an article 3 months ago that led off with the compete.com graph of the two sites' traffic, you could have written about how Posterous was kicking Tumblr's ass, and used that to support an equally plausible sounding thesis about how this was because they were based in Silicon Valley. This article is…

compete.com is a joke.

look at the top search terms sending traffic to each site. they include things like "swine flu" and "cleavage lover", which IMHO are indicative of a statistically insignificant sample size