A blog entry comparing Tumblr with Posterous hosted on Wordpress. Hmmm.
What OP does screams much louder than what he says.
Why Tumblr is kicking Posterous's ass
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Re: Why Tumblr is kicking Posterous's ass
#32Until I realized, just now, that the OP also wrote the article, I felt folks were treating him a bit unfairly. Now, not so much.
Pegobry, your point is well taken; I'm an engineer myself, and I agree -- as Web frameworks mature, and engineering/development patterns level off, design becomes the differentiating factor. And yes, provided your numbers are correct, Tumblr currently appears to be "winning." Not sure whether the latter really matters, or whether it even supports the former at all, but it's a concept with which I happen to agree.
Your mistake was to post the article here, primarily since you wrote it yourself. Most folks here are engineers who follow YC startups. You might as well have posted a link titled, "Why Microsoft Is Kicking Apple's Ass" in an Apple forum.
Re: Why Tumblr is kicking Posterous's ass
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
Am I trolling? I don't think so... In order to avoid being mistaken for trolling in the future, you might consider: + Cutting down on the curses, particular in titles. + Avoid personalizing any conflict. Your favorite sports team or the hated cross-town rival "eats dust", case studies on the other hand calmly discuss math. + Ratchet the sarcasm down seven notches. Eight if you're talking to people who know the people…
Thanks for the kind advice. For me, blogging is a conversational medium, I try to write blog posts the way I would speak, and so it's pretty unfiltered. Also I try to be engaging. And insofar as my opinion/analysis has any value, I think it's better for those concerned that it be unvarnished. I don't believe most things should be sugarcoated, and I don't think the kind of people who do startups do either.
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.
Re: Why Tumblr is kicking Posterous's ass
#34Until I realized, just now, that the OP also wrote the article, I felt folks were treating him a bit unfairly. Now, not so much. Pegobry, your point is well taken; I'm an engineer myself, and I agree -- as Web frameworks mature, and engineering/development patterns level off, design becomes the differentiating factor. And yes, provided your numbers are correct, Tumblr currently appears to be "winning." Not sure wheth…
And the downvotes the OP is getting clearly indicate that
Re: Why Tumblr is kicking Posterous's ass
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thanks for the kind advice. For me, blogging is a conversational medium, I try to write blog posts the way I would speak, and so it's pretty unfiltered. Also I try to be engaging. And insofar as my opinion/analysis has any value, I think it's better for those concerned that it be unvarnished. I don't believe most things should be sugarcoated, and I don't think the kind of people who do startups do either.
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.
Re: Why Tumblr is kicking Posterous's ass
#36A blog entry comparing Tumblr with Posterous hosted on Wordpress. Hmmm. What OP does screams much louder than what he says .
Where's the contradiction? He doesn't say 'Tumblr is the best choice for my needs.'
Re: Why Tumblr is kicking Posterous's ass
#37I think this is actually an unfair comparison. For one thing Tumblr really works the social network aspect of the site (reblogging, hearting articles, following users) whereas posterous is more an "island" blog. Which is fine, as they both solve different problems. I also think Tumblr is a technically superior product as well as a superior designed product (right now): for example I can embed javascript into my Tumbl…
I used Tumblr's Private Tumblelog feature as a group board for my personal friends for about 9 months and then switched to Posterous and haven't looked back.
Tumblr is perfect as a "deeper Twitter," but its ability to make a gated community feels tacked on, and it's more cumbersome than Twitter's protected tweets.
Posterous has the right idea for this use case. You set a single password, just as you would for a game of Starcraft, and then you use the system as normal, which is much less awkward than Tumblr's restriction of gated blogs to viewing only from the posting UI.
Re: Why Tumblr is kicking Posterous's ass
#38Looking 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?
Re: Why Tumblr is kicking Posterous's ass
#39I have been waiting for someone to write a post like this. Not because I think it's important to discuss one startup versus the other necessarily - they have very different markets in my mind - but because an exploration of the developing NYC aesthetic is worth examining.
I actually think it has a lot to do with early users. In the Bay Area, it's easy to find a large group of beta testers and early users who "get" technology in a profound way that (sadly) no where else in the country does. This contributes to the SV echo chamber and yields a certain type of feedback that in turn creates very distinctly "west coast" products. In New York, the number of truly tech-savvy social web types is much smaller and the majority come from media and advertising - ie, people who care first about design, and second about everything else.
While I'm sure the debate could rage all day about real growth and traffic stats, that's not what I took away from this article at all.
Re: Why Tumblr is kicking Posterous's ass
#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/...)