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Reading about this, it seems that Automattic is trying to revive Tumblr (which was severely mismanaged in Verizon/Oath days), not for WordPress or other venture

Reading about this, it seems that Automattic is trying to revive Tumblr (which was severely mismanaged in Verizon/Oath days), not for WordPress or other ventures. Good luck to them, but I fear that the ship has already sailed.

rsynnott 4y ago
Eh, it doesn't seem like a bad time to try it, honestly. There's a clear market for things which are quite like twitter but not actually twitter, suddenly, and Tumblr is squarely in the category of things which are quite like twitter (arguably, a lot of twitter was heavily inspired by Tumblr in the first place; I believe it had a reblog/retweet mechanism, likes, and hashtags, before Twitter did). I think this is less _visible_ because Tumblr's basic UX is so unlike Twitter's, but there's a lot of functionality crossover.
- tomhallett 4y ago
  For celebrities, it feels like Instagram is the best prepared to capitalize on any migration from Twitter. But for news/politicians, I’m curious how well Reddit could do. The main difference being the central object on Reddit is the subreddit versus the individual user. Curious how much UX tweaks it’d take for more people to follow billgates/AOC on Reddit.
  - theGnuMe 4y ago
    Too bad Meta laid them off too. Reddit is a disaster. Even their Ask Me Anything is prehistoric compared to what it could be. Outside of that look at HN as an example of an independent subreddit at its best.
Kye 4y ago
Tumblr's only major problem was policy and the drive for ever-more ad impressions to please investors. Automattic could pay off what they spent on Tumblr by passing a hat around at one of their meetups, and they eased up on the policy. A lot of people really liked Tumblr, and it fills a lot of gaps that nothing else really fits. Automattic has enough trust from their handling of WordPress that people are trickling back in. Culturally, Tumblr solves the problem of blogs where it's hard not to feel like a post is wasted if it's not a big, serious article. Tiny posts, images, links, and goofs get around just as well as big, serious posts. It solves in one platform what the fediverse is trying to solve with an awkward amalgam of Write.as, Pixelfed, and Mastodon. It might get there with a few years of iterations, but Tumblr is there today if you can stand a centralized platform. They at least let you use your own domain, unlike Twitter.
- cuteboy19 4y ago
  I agree, a lot of popular Twitter folks are Tumblr refugees after the great purge ("female presenting nipples"). It was always the policy that ruined Tumblr, the concept has a lot of potential

rsynnott 4y ago

Eh, it doesn't seem like a bad time to try it, honestly. There's a clear market for things which are quite like twitter but not actually twitter, suddenly, and Tumblr is squarely in the category of things which are quite like twitter (arguably, a lot of twitter was heavily inspired by Tumblr in the first place; I believe it had a reblog/retweet mechanism, likes, and hashtags, before Twitter did). I think this is less _visible_ because Tumblr's basic UX is so unlike Twitter's, but there's a lot of functionality crossover.

tomhallett 4y ago
For celebrities, it feels like Instagram is the best prepared to capitalize on any migration from Twitter. But for news/politicians, I’m curious how well Reddit could do. The main difference being the central object on Reddit is the subreddit versus the individual user. Curious how much UX tweaks it’d take for more people to follow billgates/AOC on Reddit.
- theGnuMe 4y ago
  Too bad Meta laid them off too. Reddit is a disaster. Even their Ask Me Anything is prehistoric compared to what it could be. Outside of that look at HN as an example of an independent subreddit at its best.

Kye 4y ago

Tumblr's only major problem was policy and the drive for ever-more ad impressions to please investors. Automattic could pay off what they spent on Tumblr by passing a hat around at one of their meetups, and they eased up on the policy. A lot of people really liked Tumblr, and it fills a lot of gaps that nothing else really fits. Automattic has enough trust from their handling of WordPress that people are trickling back in. Culturally, Tumblr solves the problem of blogs where it's hard not to feel like a post is wasted if it's not a big, serious article. Tiny posts, images, links, and goofs get around just as well as big, serious posts. It solves in one platform what the fediverse is trying to solve with an awkward amalgam of Write.as, Pixelfed, and Mastodon. It might get there with a few years of iterations, but Tumblr is there today if you can stand a centralized platform. They at least let you use your own domain, unlike Twitter.

cuteboy19 4y ago
I agree, a lot of popular Twitter folks are Tumblr refugees after the great purge ("female presenting nipples"). It was always the policy that ruined Tumblr, the concept has a lot of potential