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Startups: Don't Host Your Blog on Tumblr

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Re: Startups: Don't Host Your Blog on Tumblr

#51

Post by theli0nheart »

PStamatiou wrote: post #43
abalone wrote: post #40

Ummm.... they're hosting on HEROKU? In 2011, Tumblr was down for 42 hours. In 2011, Heroku was down for 76 hours in one incident alone. And that's all before you get to the hubris of the assumption that your custom coded setup will perform better. A more sensible argument would be to move to a host with a better proven uptime record, such as Blogger (nearly 100%). Sources: http://allthingsd.com/20111215/tumblr-had-42…

No biggie, I can temporary move our blog to another host with a simple DNS change and pulling the static site from our repo. Ah, the power of jekyll!

If you're using Jekyll, why not just host with S3/Cloudfront?

Re: Startups: Don't Host Your Blog on Tumblr

#52

Post by kerryusry »

getsat wrote: post #48
kerryusry wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another option that is out there in beta now is http://trillsy.com . You can use existing themes or your own design, it offers more user features, multiple contributors or posting from the public and also has an post type for events with an event calendar. It is worth checking out, beta keys are going out. In the interest of full disclosure this is my service, sorry about missing that when first posting.

Free trial... wait, I need a beta key? Where are the plans/prices?

The free trial will always be there, the beta key is a temporary requirement, a gate if you will, and extends the trial period. Plans are not entirely set, the entry plan will be low but it is not a free service, it is aimed at business primarily not a personal blog.

Re: Startups: Don't Host Your Blog on Tumblr

#53

Post by PStamatiou »

theli0nheart wrote: post #51
PStamatiou wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No biggie, I can temporary move our blog to another host with a simple DNS change and pulling the static site from our repo. Ah, the power of jekyll!

If you're using Jekyll, why not just host with S3/Cloudfront?

I had thought about it but

- I wanted to use Sinatra to 301 old tumblr urls

- Call me weird but I loathe seeing *.html in urls and that's the only thing you can do with S3 root object (when I checked a few months ago)

- something I can't remember. maybe it was cf edge server time to update when altering updates.

Re: Startups: Don't Host Your Blog on Tumblr

#55

Post by zizee »

chlee wrote: post #44
zizee wrote: post #27

Another problem with hosting with Tumblr is that you can't host the blog on the same domain as your app. The usual solution is to host the blog at blog.example.com. The problem with this is that subdomains are treated by google as a separate domain, so any google juice flowing to your blog does not help your main domain. With SEO, one of the most important things is incoming links and if you split your incoming links…

Are there blog hosting services that one can use in a subfolder? AFAIK, both tumblr and posterous only supports subdomains but not folders.

Unfortunately not. I don't think this is actually possible as I don't think you can have a subfolder of a site hosted elsewhere (not in a 'performant' manner at least).

The only solution that I know of is to host it all on the one box which makes it trick if you want to use Heroku to host your app.

I am currently wrestling with this problem as I want to host a new app on Heroku, but have the marketing side of the site powered by wordpress to take advantage of things like third party themes. The app will also generate linkable content, so it is important to me to have it on the same domain, but there seems to be no way to achieve what I want to do with heroku :-(

So annoying!

Re: Startups: Don't Host Your Blog on Tumblr

#57

Post by shortformblog »

I run a news site on Tumblr and I can tell you my downtime problems are nowhere near as bad as this site suggests they are. In the past three months I can remember only one major bout of downtime, and I'm on the site most of the day every day.

And in the case that downtime is as bad as it seems, I suggest you guys use CloudFlare, which will at least keep a cached version of your site online even during downtime issues.

Tumblr is way more about community than mission-critical uptime. If you treat it like mission-critical uptime, you're going to be disappointed. If you're trying to reach an audience for your application — which, honestly, should be more important with a staff blog — Tumblr is a great bet.

Re: Startups: Don't Host Your Blog on Tumblr

#60

Post by alexwolfe »

apsurd wrote: post #36
alexwolfe wrote: post #34

A Tumblr blog may not be the best solution but spending that many resources on a blog (especially one not featured in the main navigation) is usually out of the question for most startups. For most startups the amount of time invested for a custom Jekyll setup and a downtime script could be replaced with a new feature or a better product/home page. I think its important for startups not to spend too much time bloggin…

HN'ers have a hard enough time accepting: 'more features' != 'more marketshare' I would caution this making sure to note "it depends on the startup". If your industry pays attention to blogs it's very much worth devoting large amounts of effort to capturing this attention. I as much as the next programmer need the _focus on marketing_ mantra pounded into my head time and time again. See 37signals blog, seomoz blog, a…

I certainly don't have a hard time with that. Perhaps reread the comment I left.

"unless they feel it will provide them some decent traffic and strongly support the product/company"

Not sure you added anything to my previous comment.

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