7 ms·

The Fashion Industry Wants Tumblr to Get its Fucking Act Together

30 points by Ataub24 15y ago

cienrak 15y ago
Apparently so does music industry - from comments on story: "I run a music blog on Tumblr and I've been saying this for a long time. I'd LOVE to see an analytics dashboard, simply for the fun of knowing exactly how deep the engagement goes, but also for a business standpoint... this gap prevents me from knowing and selling my blog's true reach."
thesethings 15y ago
I love Tumblr and get a lot of value from it both personally and professionally. I also regularly recommend it. (I start off with with this endorsement because I'm about to point out some opportunities for improvement that I don't want anybody to interpret as reasons not to use it. No matter what, you should probably be using it like people 2.5 years ago should have been starting to think about how they/if could use Twitter for their projects/socializing.) On the one hand, Tumblr's lack of internal analytics (as referenced in this article) is a major weakness of almost all social networks. But on the other, users and businesses feel the pain more acutely on Tumblr than on other sites. It's a bit chicken and egg, but Tumblr is best consumed through its internal Dashboard, and many social interactions on Tumblr are invisible through any other interface. (When you see a Tumblr out on the web, it looks just like a normal website, but people "inside" the system are having a giant party you don't know about.) Tumblr's API (very recently updated, I may be slightly behind on everything it supports) does not giving visibility to a lot of this stuff, so there's no rich ecosystem of clients like Twitter has. One can argue how well Twitter handles its developer community, but there's no denying that all the little tools out there, even if they only get "stolen" by Twitter in the end, give Twitter visibility to what users want. Let's start with search. Twitter's original search was much worse than it is today (bad timing for me to write this, as for about a month now, Twitter search has been slightly broken). They bought Summize, who did search very well. In fact, Summize also did the first iteration of trending topics (which even if they make you worry about America, is a fascinating and incredible thing to have around). Tumblr's personal search has been broken for about 3 years (longer?). There is pretty much no global search. (And not supported in API.) The Twitter ecosystem also has a whole bunch of little point tools like "Where are your followers located?" and "What tags do you use the most?" Tumblr at one point asked you what city you were in during onboarding, yet that data is nowhere to be seen, even by the account owner. I'll stop with my examples. My point is mostly that sure, Tumblr could make an analytics dashboard. That would be great. OR, it could provide more data through the API, and I'm sure a developer community would spring up to meet many of these needs, and some we haven't even thought of.
- tlack 15y ago
  I wonder how much of this could be rigged together with smart Javascript tags dropped around the template? Have you looked in to that option? We're definitely starting to embrace Tumblr at work, and even though we haven't really looked into the analytical/demographic aspect of it, it would be wise to know what's on the horizon for us.
  - thesethings 15y ago
    That does address one's own Tumblr Dashboard when logged in. And there has been one browser extension that's gotten quite popular- Missing-E. But it's gone through battles with Tumblr, and also doesn't solve the "global" issue: I don't just wanna see stuff about me, I want to discover stuff outside my account. Example, "Who blogs about farmers markets in Miami?" Something like this is app-able in twitter, but not Tumblr given its current API. I do still recommend checking out Missing-E. Don't put it on all your browsers (it can't keep up with Tumblr changes, and sometimes freezes). But it is helpful. (It's available for FF, Chrome, and Safari.) http://blog.missinge.infraware.ca/ http://blog.missinge.infraware.ca/
jeremymcanally 15y ago
Interestingly we just started work on a Tumblr analytics product. Will have to advertise to the fashion industry soon... :)
- timjahn 15y ago
  How long until Tumblr creates the exact same thing?
  - jeremymcanally 15y ago
    If experience is any indicator, probably never.
- busse 15y ago
  I'd be very curious to know how you're planning to measure the exposure of posts within the Tumblr Dashboard? See my post "The Fashion industry wants analytics from Tumblr, but what should they be looking at?" http://cbus.se/r3I80r http://cbus.se/r3I80r for more detail on how I'm exploring the Tumblr Analytic "problem"
  - jeremymcanally 15y ago
    I think you bring up some really good points, but I think we've solved those with some things we've been adding in. I see you do social media strategy stuff from your blog; if you want to chat about how we can help you do your job with this tool, feel free to email (username at gmail). We're trying to tailor this to how people will actually use it. :)
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]

30 points by Ataub24 15y ago

Apparently so does music industry - from comments on story: "I run a music blog on Tumblr and I've been saying this for a long time. I'd LOVE to see an analytics dashboard, simply for the fun of knowing exactly how deep the engagement goes, but also for a business standpoint... this gap prevents me from knowing and selling my blog's true reach."

thesethings 15y ago

I love Tumblr and get a lot of value from it both personally and professionally. I also regularly recommend it. (I start off with with this endorsement because I'm about to point out some opportunities for improvement that I don't want anybody to interpret as reasons not to use it. No matter what, you should probably be using it like people 2.5 years ago should have been starting to think about how they/if could use Twitter for their projects/socializing.) On the one hand, Tumblr's lack of internal analytics (as referenced in this article) is a major weakness of almost all social networks. But on the other, users and businesses feel the pain more acutely on Tumblr than on other sites. It's a bit chicken and egg, but Tumblr is best consumed through its internal Dashboard, and many social interactions on Tumblr are invisible through any other interface. (When you see a Tumblr out on the web, it looks just like a normal website, but people "inside" the system are having a giant party you don't know about.) Tumblr's API (very recently updated, I may be slightly behind on everything it supports) does not giving visibility to a lot of this stuff, so there's no rich ecosystem of clients like Twitter has. One can argue how well Twitter handles its developer community, but there's no denying that all the little tools out there, even if they only get "stolen" by Twitter in the end, give Twitter visibility to what users want. Let's start with search. Twitter's original search was much worse than it is today (bad timing for me to write this, as for about a month now, Twitter search has been slightly broken). They bought Summize, who did search very well. In fact, Summize also did the first iteration of trending topics (which even if they make you worry about America, is a fascinating and incredible thing to have around). Tumblr's personal search has been broken for about 3 years (longer?). There is pretty much no global search. (And not supported in API.) The Twitter ecosystem also has a whole bunch of little point tools like "Where are your followers located?" and "What tags do you use the most?" Tumblr at one point asked you what city you were in during onboarding, yet that data is nowhere to be seen, even by the account owner. I'll stop with my examples. My point is mostly that sure, Tumblr could make an analytics dashboard. That would be great. OR, it could provide more data through the API, and I'm sure a developer community would spring up to meet many of these needs, and some we haven't even thought of.

tlack 15y ago
I wonder how much of this could be rigged together with smart Javascript tags dropped around the template? Have you looked in to that option? We're definitely starting to embrace Tumblr at work, and even though we haven't really looked into the analytical/demographic aspect of it, it would be wise to know what's on the horizon for us.
- thesethings 15y ago
  That does address one's own Tumblr Dashboard when logged in. And there has been one browser extension that's gotten quite popular- Missing-E. But it's gone through battles with Tumblr, and also doesn't solve the "global" issue: I don't just wanna see stuff about me, I want to discover stuff outside my account. Example, "Who blogs about farmers markets in Miami?" Something like this is app-able in twitter, but not Tumblr given its current API. I do still recommend checking out Missing-E. Don't put it on all your browsers (it can't keep up with Tumblr changes, and sometimes freezes). But it is helpful. (It's available for FF, Chrome, and Safari.) http://blog.missinge.infraware.ca/ http://blog.missinge.infraware.ca/

jeremymcanally 15y ago

Interestingly we just started work on a Tumblr analytics product. Will have to advertise to the fashion industry soon... :)

timjahn 15y ago
How long until Tumblr creates the exact same thing?
- jeremymcanally 15y ago
  If experience is any indicator, probably never.
busse 15y ago
I'd be very curious to know how you're planning to measure the exposure of posts within the Tumblr Dashboard? See my post "The Fashion industry wants analytics from Tumblr, but what should they be looking at?" http://cbus.se/r3I80r http://cbus.se/r3I80r for more detail on how I'm exploring the Tumblr Analytic "problem"
- jeremymcanally 15y ago
  I think you bring up some really good points, but I think we've solved those with some things we've been adding in. I see you do social media strategy stuff from your blog; if you want to chat about how we can help you do your job with this tool, feel free to email (username at gmail). We're trying to tailor this to how people will actually use it. :)

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]