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Looking Back on Selling Gravatar to Automattic

tom.preston-werner.com

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Re: Looking Back on Selling Gravatar to Automattic

#11

Post by axod »

MicahWedemeyer wrote: post #3

The next time someone bitches to me about scaling, I'm going to point them to this article. It's a perfect example of why designing to scale from the beginning is usually bullshit. It's only worth scaling once you know you have something worth it. Why design all sorts of crazy cache schemes, redundant load balancers, and master-slave databases when your actual product is crap? All you end up doing is slowing yourself…

I think it's a balance. You have to design with scaling in mind, and pick tools that allow you to potentially scale later on. If possible you don't want to have to rewrite you app several times from scratch as you scale.

But I agree. The hardest bit is making something people will use, and come back and use again, and again.

Re: Looking Back on Selling Gravatar to Automattic

#12

Post by mojombo »

mhartl wrote: post #2

I'm so glad Tom shared this. I've always wondered how Gravatar got started, grew, and ended up being bought by Automattic. N.B. As many people here know, Tom is one of the GitHub founders. And yes, GitHub uses Gravatars.

Once Automattic took over and scaled Gravatar out with their amazing CDN, adoption really ramped up. I use them without pause on my own projects, and I'm really happy to not have to configure my avatar every place I go!

Re: Looking Back on Selling Gravatar to Automattic

#13

Post by dannyr »

mojombo wrote: post #6
dannyr wrote: post #5

Tom, I hope you continue writing posts like this. For an aspiring entrepreneur, it's inspiring to hear the stories from people who have taken the risks. By the way, we worked in the same company before in San Diego. I was miserable so I just quit and moved to the Bay area.

I'm really glad you enjoyed it! Were you at Active? I'll write a post later on about how I ended up moving to SF. Good call on the move, this area is amazing.

Yup Active. We were in the same team. Crazy Rob and I know each other. The Active home page was "cameronized" last week.

Moving here is probably the best decision I've made in terms of my career. It's easier to meet like-minded people. I got to know startup founders and employees with no effort at all.

Re: Looking Back on Selling Gravatar to Automattic

#14

Post by alex_c »

MicahWedemeyer wrote: post #3

The next time someone bitches to me about scaling, I'm going to point them to this article. It's a perfect example of why designing to scale from the beginning is usually bullshit. It's only worth scaling once you know you have something worth it. Why design all sorts of crazy cache schemes, redundant load balancers, and master-slave databases when your actual product is crap? All you end up doing is slowing yourself…

I agree with you, but on the other hand, it's worth keeping the 90/10 rule in mind: if you can get 90% more performance up front with only 10% more effort, go for it. Caching images instead of generating them on the fly is pretty low hanging fruit.

(yes, I made up a 90/10 rule just to make my argument sound better).

Re: Looking Back on Selling Gravatar to Automattic

#16

Post by [deleted] »

MicahWedemeyer wrote: post #3

The next time someone bitches to me about scaling, I'm going to point them to this article. It's a perfect example of why designing to scale from the beginning is usually bullshit. It's only worth scaling once you know you have something worth it. Why design all sorts of crazy cache schemes, redundant load balancers, and master-slave databases when your actual product is crap? All you end up doing is slowing yourself…

[deleted]

Re: Looking Back on Selling Gravatar to Automattic

#18

Post by pushcx »

"It was also made clear by Toni that Automattic would maintain Gravatar as a separate brand and continue its evolution (instead of just absorbing it into WordPress)."

I just looked at getting a gravatar for my Github account. I didn't do it because the signup page told me I was actually signing up for a Wordpress account and I needed to choose a handle I could never ever change. I wanted an icon, not to make an irrevocable decision and sign up for some unrelated site, so I gave up. The author writes "Gravatar was a feature"; I felt the same way: I was left wondering why GitHub would outsource a feature for another company to confuse.

Lots of nice history here, though. Great blog post.

Re: Looking Back on Selling Gravatar to Automattic

#19

Post by mojombo »

pushcx wrote: post #18

"It was also made clear by Toni that Automattic would maintain Gravatar as a separate brand and continue its evolution (instead of just absorbing it into WordPress)." I just looked at getting a gravatar for my Github account. I didn't do it because the signup page told me I was actually signing up for a Wordpress account and I needed to choose a handle I could never ever change. I wanted an icon, not to make an irrev…

I think it was inevitable that Automattic would more closely integrate the two products, but they're doing it in a way that maintains both brands. As far as having to choose a permanent identifier on signup, it's not the path I would have chosen (signup forms need to be as dead simple as painless as possible), but it certainly doesn't seem like too high a hurdle for most people to jump.
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