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Posterous takes on Tumblr

blog.posterous.com

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Re: Posterous takes on Tumblr

#21

Post by webwright »

pclark wrote: post #5

This is a really low blow. This is what companies do when they are clutching at straws - they spread misinformation. Considering: * Most tumblr themes have Disqus integration, and the "tumblr way" to comment is via reblog. * Multiple people can contribute to Tumblr blogs, I can also submit posts even if I'm not a user, and ask the authors questions (formspring style) * I can also password protect my Tumblr. They also…

It's not misinformation, but it is marketing/PR (and I bet it's working).

Competing is not a low blow and it's not stabbing anyone in the back. They aren't saying "Tumblr SUCKS", they are saying "We're different, here's how, come give us a shot".

Re: Posterous takes on Tumblr

#22

Post by dustydean »

dotcoma wrote: post #7

Free service number 1 with no business model in sight wages war against free service number 2 with equally no business model in sight. "web2.0" is the new "New Economy".

Spot on.

I can't recommend people post their longer form content and media on platforms that have an opaque path to generating revenue.

I do recommend that they have someone create a self-hosted open source platform for sharing their content online.

The custom post types that have finally arrived in WordPress 3.0 allow people to create their own mini-Tumblrs on their self-hosted website.

I feel that if someone works hard enough to create their own content then they should give some serious thought to their publishing platform too.

Re: Posterous takes on Tumblr

#23

Post by rantfoil »

pclark wrote: post #5

This is a really low blow. This is what companies do when they are clutching at straws - they spread misinformation. Considering: * Most tumblr themes have Disqus integration, and the "tumblr way" to comment is via reblog. * Multiple people can contribute to Tumblr blogs, I can also submit posts even if I'm not a user, and ask the authors questions (formspring style) * I can also password protect my Tumblr. They also…

I have a major bone to pick with your characterization of Posterous themes. I hardly think the theme community is unhappy about suddenly being able to use their themes on millions of other blogs that aren't Tumblr.

Also, the themes that we build into our service are 100% licensed via partnership with the theme designers.

Attacking the ability to use Tumblr themes in Posterous is absurd. It's like saying Google Apps isn't allowed to open Microsoft Word documents.

Re: Posterous takes on Tumblr

#24

Post by pclark »

webwright wrote: post #21
pclark wrote: post #5

This is a really low blow. This is what companies do when they are clutching at straws - they spread misinformation. Considering: * Most tumblr themes have Disqus integration, and the "tumblr way" to comment is via reblog. * Multiple people can contribute to Tumblr blogs, I can also submit posts even if I'm not a user, and ask the authors questions (formspring style) * I can also password protect my Tumblr. They also…

It's not misinformation, but it is marketing/PR (and I bet it's working). Competing is not a low blow and it's not stabbing anyone in the back. They aren't saying "Tumblr SUCKS", they are saying "We're different, here's how, come give us a shot".

If they wanted that they should pitch the benefits of their service (hey, you and your family members can just email in posts!) not:

> But blogging on Tumblr is sort of like being in high school. You have a lot of friends. You can navigate all the different cliques. You're comfortable. But you know deep-down that you can't be in high school forever. Eventually, you have to move on.

Posterous saying "tumblr doesn't support multiple contributors for a blog" when it does - what do you call that?

Re: Posterous takes on Tumblr

#25

Post by KirinDave »

I love these checklist format comparisons that they do. It's an easy signal for me, “These people do not understand why one product is chosen over another.” If these are the dimensions by which you think Tumblr can be beaten, I wish you good luck but do not have high hopes for you.

It's sort of like when someone uses the word “skinning” in reference to UX. I just immediately know to disregard everything they say as a total waste of time.

Re: Posterous takes on Tumblr

#26

Post by pclark »

rantfoil wrote: post #23
pclark wrote: post #5

This is a really low blow. This is what companies do when they are clutching at straws - they spread misinformation. Considering: * Most tumblr themes have Disqus integration, and the "tumblr way" to comment is via reblog. * Multiple people can contribute to Tumblr blogs, I can also submit posts even if I'm not a user, and ask the authors questions (formspring style) * I can also password protect my Tumblr. They also…

I have a major bone to pick with your characterization of Posterous themes. I hardly think the theme community is unhappy about suddenly being able to use their themes on millions of other blogs that aren't Tumblr. Also, the themes that we build into our service are 100% licensed via partnership with the theme designers. Attacking the ability to use Tumblr themes in Posterous is absurd. It's like saying Google Apps i…

I didn't attack the feature, I said they bootstrapped their theme launch with the tumblr themes. That isn't attacking.

I simply meant they lent on the pre existing tumblr community to boost their own offerings - which was genius.

I do think to do that, and for Tumblr to nod or whatever, and then to do this, seems, IMHO a mis-step.

Re: Posterous takes on Tumblr

#27

Post by rantfoil »

pclark wrote: post #26
rantfoil wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a major bone to pick with your characterization of Posterous themes. I hardly think the theme community is unhappy about suddenly being able to use their themes on millions of other blogs that aren't Tumblr. Also, the themes that we build into our service are 100% licensed via partnership with the theme designers. Attacking the ability to use Tumblr themes in Posterous is absurd. It's like saying Google Apps i…

I didn't attack the feature, I said they bootstrapped their theme launch with the tumblr themes. That isn't attacking. I simply meant they lent on the pre existing tumblr community to boost their own offerings - which was genius. I do think to do that, and for Tumblr to nod or whatever, and then to do this, seems, IMHO a mis-step.

Actually on day one every single theme that we launched, I designed.

We gradually added the best themes that we liked the most, some of them were Tumblr themes, and others were created by Posterous users, e.g. http://corywatilo.com

Re: Posterous takes on Tumblr

#28

Post by ivankirigin »

Nice move. But the community and dashboard are what make tumblr good. I use both actively.

They should make it easy to import my entire dashboard. They could also turn the Posterous dashboard into an rss reader. That would be incredibly useful.

Reblooging is better than comment moderation administrivia.

Re: Posterous takes on Tumblr

#29

Post by thingie »

daveschappell wrote: post #13

Yeah, it's a stretch/sketchy campaign, but at least they're taking the gloves off, right? I personally am frustrated by the quirky Tumblr features (after many tries, I still don't get the formatting of reblogging) and miss plain on comments (when they don't have Disqus installed). Will be interesting to see which of the easy-blog-tools wins out. Right now, my bet would be on Tumblr.

I don't know, personally, I'm frustrated by Posterous too.

They're adding one useless features after another, but that email posting still cannot get even such a basic thing as paragraphs right. Just piles of br's after each line. And they are converting every nonascii character to HTML escape sequences. So after each post, I have to edit unreadable crap full of HTML escapes to put there at least that paragraphs (because otherwise, with larger font sizes, there'd be line break because of whole text-field width and then, after just a word or two, because of those hard breaks in HTML).

On the benefit side, there are things like TypeKit, which seems quite useless to me, as I couldn't find any way to explicitly display only fonts that have Czech diacritics characters, which is essential to me. Facebook like buttons that I don't want… And so on. It's quite tiresome. At first, I liked Posterous because it was easy to setup and worked really well, but I'm getting quite weary of all those, seemingly unimportant, deficiencies.

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