Happy new year! I'm leaving Tumblr.
*gasps of horror from the balcony*
Before I go any further, allow me to note that, no, I don’t have any delusions of self-importance, and yes, I realize that this will most likely be read by 15-ish people, max. Regardless, I’ve been doing this tumblelog thing for a long time now, and I feel I should exit properly. The tree makes a sound, indeed, listeners be damned.
Here is why I’m leaving, and I apologize in advance for how massive this post is.
Tumblr is weak.
Yeah, weak. The tumblelogging phenomenon is an interesting solution to the major problem with capital-b Blogging: that humans are intensely diverse and complicated beings, and consistent long-form articles are both impractical and inadequate for the type of creative expression toward which most people strive. In short, I don’t want to write 3 paragraphs about every day of my life, and you probably don’t want to read it. There are better ways to get the job done, and tumblelogging is one of them. Tumblr, specifically, allows a user to quickly and easily record photos, videos, links, short-form or long-form text, while simultaneously offering “tumblelog”-style designs that optimally frame - both contextually and graphically - their sort of content. By encouraging multiple content types, Tumblr is basically creating a one-stop-shop for one’s creative endeavors. Problem is, none of the individual content types are done justice; jack of all trades, master of none. To elaborate on a few of these types:
Long-form articles: Community fail. -or- Comments. Seriously.
These days, long-form articles with no community aspect are basically worthless. I mean, that shit’s for print media, right? There is absolutely no reason why readers should not be able to discuss - let alone be actively prevented from discussing - an essay with fellow readers and, preferably, the author him/herself as well. This is especially true for a blogging platform of any kind. Doesn’t that completely defeat the purpose of an international network?
If I’m lucky, it might get a few Likes, and if you’re planning on clicking that little lonely heart, let me stop you now. Please don’t. Your Liking this post doesn’t mean a goddamn thing to me. We all like a million things a day, and I really don’t need the speck of affirmation that comes attached to a Like. They are pointless and, as far as I’m concerned, borderline insulting. An empty, polite smile. The kind with your mouth but not with your eyes
And if I’m really lucky, maybe some poor souls will Reblog this. To all of you: sorry in advance for cluttering up your dashboard! I understand that you appreciate at least some part of what I’m saying and wish to share it with others, and maybe even add a few thoughts of your own. It’s a real shame that to add anything to this discussion, you have to take it away from here and in to your own garden. I really would like to foster a discussion about all this, but it’s impossible when Reblogs fracture the discussion flow.
While I’m on the subject, I’d like to add final thoughts on the whole Comments issue. I could go on for another thousand words about them, but I’ll be brief: there aren’t comments because David and Marco live in a world where every website has comments like YouTube. Lots of spam and insults and useless drivel. Thing is, it would be really, stupidly, mind-numbingly easy for Tumblr to add moderated comments. Step one: only Tumblr users can comment. Step two: allow for easy comment deletion and, and this is the kicker, easy banning of a user and all their comments. Throw in a usable Comment Overview interface and you’re looking at 5 minutes of moderation a day, tops. Reblogs over useful Comments? Give me a break. Reblogging isn’t good for much, and definitely isn’t good for conversation.
As I write this, I’m already at 800+ words, and the final version will probably be nearly twice that. How many daily posts like this could your Dashboard stand?
Photo? Pho-no.
Tumblr is useful for passing on nice photos that one finds elsewhere, or displaying a small number of photos that one has taken themselves, but anyone who takes regular photos might as well forget about it. Theresa usually uploads batches of photos every couple days, but what would she do with Tumblr? Upload all of them and flood everyone’s Dashboard? I hope not, that’s really annoying. Upload one with a link to Flickr? That just defeats the purpose. Fracturing of attention is specifically what Tumblr is aiming to defeat, what with the multiple content types and the Dashboard with no RSS feed (more on that later). There is no good solution. Weak.
Tumblr is too restrictive.
Surprisingly restrictive for such a “cutting-edge” company. Don’t get me wrong, I’m really not a Nazi when it comes to the whole “everything should be open and free” movement, I have no problem with closed-source software that costs money, and so on. There are just a number of silly little restrictive things that don’t make sense to me. For example, Tumblr limits the number of RSS feeds that your account can import to 5, which is barely enough for anyone with an active web presence who wants their Tumblr to be the one-stop-shop it could (and, I think, they want it to) be. (Weird sidebar: They explicitly note that importing content that you didn’t create is forbidden, yet there are so many Tumblrs with nothing but reblogged content that it has become become an inter-Tumblr thing. It’s only okay if you do it repost content manually?) The big one for me, though, is the fact that the Dashboard doesn’t have an RSS feed. You *have* to visit their site to catch up. I can’t think of any other site I visit that doesn’t have a feed. I really don’t want to sound like a pessimist, but I have a nagging feeling that this is going to be a key factor in their business model in the future. Free, with ads on the Dashboard you’re forced to visit. Whether or not that is the plan, not having a feed for the Dashboard is a definite fail.
David and Marco are annoying.
It’s always nice to get a feel for the personalities of those behind a service one uses, especially a company so small, but the more I learn about these two the less I want to be associated with them. Of course, this is by no means a major deciding factor in my exit, but it doesn’t help. Mr. Karp appears to be some sort of socialite pseudo-wunderkind who, as far as I can tell, isn’t really good at anything. Mr. Arment is a bit grumpy and has a tendency to complain about people’s obsessiveness with deals while simultaneously purchasing two $2000+ digital cameras, for example, but he is, at least, useful. His Instapaper app is a gem of both usability and functionality, and I’m quite sure that most if not all of Tumblr’s positive qualities come from him. In the end, however, I wouldn’t want to spend too much time with either of them, which leads me to…
I don’t like where Tumblr is going.
So I’m not the biggest fan of the ownership, and when you combine that with the fact that the last two big updates (besides redesigns to the Customize layout) to the site were Likes and avatar bling (for fuck’s sake), I’m pretty sure that they’re just about out of Earth-shattering ideas in this realm. Tumblr is neat, but it could be a lot better, and I don’t think it will get there.
So what’s your solution, smart guy?
I’m not entirely sure yet. What I do know is, there are a ton of sites that perform individual tasks significantly better than Tumblr does, so I’m going to go with those. Flickr for photos, Twitter for short-form text, Vimeo for video, Delicious for links, for example. The obvious problem with this is the fragmentation (this word is coming up a lot) of all these individual sites, but I have some ideas with how to solve that. I’ve had ideas for a while though, so who knows. I hope jumping in to the deep end will force me towards putting something together. The Dashboard is a neat idea, really, but I’m also curious if Theresa uploaded any pictures recently, or if Herschell is on Xbox Live and up for some Left 4 Dead, or what new site Aaron is working on and has worked on in the past. Tumblr doesn’t solve that problem. Reblogging is boring. We don’t need more curators, we need more creators, and we need ways to aggregate what we do in the real world and connect it with people we care about. There needs to be a hub, flexible enough for new sites and content types to be added and removed as the tides ebb and flow. For the time being, that’ll be a personal site for me. We’ll see what happens.
The bottom line.
All these gripes aren’t terribly noteworthy, individually, but when combined they really kill it for me. So that’s that. I think I’m done with this digital ecosystem thing, little online micro-cliques that are completely detached from reality. Life is way too interesting for these sort of things. I’m going to add most of the people I’m currently following to my RSS reader, so I’ll still be reading and will be sure to drop by if/when comments ever show up. You can email me if you’re particularly interested in keeping tabs or discussing this.
And maybe, just maybe, I’ll go outside more?
See ya!
