Live data from Hacker News

Tumblr the Day After

ma.tt

41–50 of 62 posts

Re: Tumblr the Day After

#41
post #16

I recently switched from Medium to a static site, but for anyone else looking to switch from medium - this may now be an option again?

I think the real alternative to Medium is Ghost as a hosted or self-hosted version. Depending on your needs and the amount of time you want to spend on it. https://ghost.org/

Ghost starts at $29/month, it seems, and Medium starts at $0/month, so I don't see them as comparable.

Re: Tumblr the Day After

#42

"Instead, Tumblr has a new chance to redefine itself in 2019 and beyond" So, Matt commented in the other thread that NSFW content is not coming back due to the difficulties around hosting and processing adult content (payment processing, advertising, everything). Where does Tumblr fit in 2020 between Twitter, Medium, and Instagram? What's its medium?

I enjoy tumblr for posting gifs made with code: https://dontcode.tumblr.com/ For me it's just a nice/easy place to post stuff & get quick feedback/appreciation. It's also nice to scroll through nice/funny/cute things & sometimes get info on issues that the tumblr community cares about.

I post gifs made of code too. https://testme.tumblr.com

Re: Tumblr the Day After

#43

Does this put Automattic into the ad business? Or were they already there?

Does Tumblr run its own and network?

They did, but there was an integration with Verizon's stack. Maybe they will just keep that in place.

I'll say that they clearly don't run many ads. They have a native ad offering that I've never been able to spot in the wild.

Re: Tumblr the Day After

#44
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me tumblr does best in that you have chains of responses (reblogs) in images/gifs and text form, that then are reposted on one's own blog for their own followers to experience broadly in a singular dashboard whose ordering isn't really manipulated (like twitter and instagram are, to my extreme vexation). Also, because tumblr makes it easy to create side-blogs, you can follow a favorite person for their specific s…

Twitter is the key. Twitter has failed to deliver a sane way to read threads. after all these years I still don't know how to read a conversation. And the whole platform is about conversation ! If Tumblr can get it it right with WP, I won't miss Twitter.

Tumblr already has conversations that you can read, but only everything up to the specific post you found up to a point (you can look in the notes for the reply but it can get messy). Unlike a forum which consists of all the posts, each reblog chain contains each post previously. It also means if you follow both parties in an ongoing chain, each reply will occur in your feed in the reverse order of their posting.

Re: Tumblr the Day After

#45

"Automattic is still a startup — I’m sure there are deep-pocketed private equity firms that could have outbid us, but the most likely outcome then would have been an “asset” getting chopped up and sold for parts. [...] Instead, Tumblr has a new chance to redefine itself in 2019 and beyond." I think Matt is right to point out the real story here. Automattic is simply the right home for Tumblr. Perhaps similarly to how…

100% agree that of the list of realistic outcomes, Tumblr going to Automattic is one of the best possible outcomes. That said, and I know this is said a lot, but I really wish our industry would stop trying to label everything a "startup". Automattic was founded in 2005 and has 1000 employees. It's not a startup, it's a mature medium size tech company. Its problems are not startup problems, they're mature medium size…

This is really just shorthand for saying "our employees don't hate working at our company as much as the typical large company because we try to limit bureaucracy and politicking and we value / recognize good ideas and actual execution"

Re: Tumblr the Day After

#46
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the real alternative to Medium is Ghost as a hosted or self-hosted version. Depending on your needs and the amount of time you want to spend on it. https://ghost.org/

Ghost starts at $29/month, it seems, and Medium starts at $0/month, so I don't see them as comparable.

With Medium you don't really have your own site / brand though. You can't use your own domain [1], your users get a paywall pop up when they read your content and the discovery feature that convinced a lot of people at the beginning because they got so much traffic is also not so useful any more.

[1] https://help.medium.com/hc/en-us/articles/115003053487-Custo...

Re: Tumblr the Day After

#47
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me tumblr does best in that you have chains of responses (reblogs) in images/gifs and text form, that then are reposted on one's own blog for their own followers to experience broadly in a singular dashboard whose ordering isn't really manipulated (like twitter and instagram are, to my extreme vexation). Also, because tumblr makes it easy to create side-blogs, you can follow a favorite person for their specific s…

Twitter is the key. Twitter has failed to deliver a sane way to read threads. after all these years I still don't know how to read a conversation. And the whole platform is about conversation ! If Tumblr can get it it right with WP, I won't miss Twitter.

i'm not a huge fan of the way twitter presents threads and conversations, but the few times i've tried to follow a conversation on tumblr i've only found it to be even worse than twitter. i'm not sure tumblr is the saviour we're looking for here.

Re: Tumblr the Day After

#48

"Instead, Tumblr has a new chance to redefine itself in 2019 and beyond" I feel like the same thing was said about Napster at some point as well. It's going to take __a lot__ of resources for Tumblr to overcome its status as yet another formerly-hot-but-now-a-has-been (e.g., Yahoo, AOL, MySpace, etc.) Trumblr had its moment. It had its time. It had its audience. They are all in the past. The odds of it making any sor…

There is still no platform which gives space to those who called (the old) Tumblr home.

Re: Tumblr the Day After

#49
post #16

I recently switched from Medium to a static site, but for anyone else looking to switch from medium - this may now be an option again?

I think the real alternative to Medium is Ghost as a hosted or self-hosted version. Depending on your needs and the amount of time you want to spend on it. https://ghost.org/

I feel like wordpress.com doesn't get a fair shake in these comparisons. It's not the sexy new thing, but it's a perfectly functional, not-annoying blogging platform that's easy for my marketing staff to self-manage. The pricing is reasonable, it doesn't try to throw up all kinds of nag screens to the readers like medium does, and they've been doing the same thing for long enough that I trust they aren't going to pivot to something weird next week.

Re: Tumblr the Day After

#50
If, as the post suggests, Tumblr becomes OSS (and especially if it becomes distributed/decentralized), I will gladly start using it. It would--immediately--become the best available free-as-in-speech social network.
Post reply on HN