5 ms·

The real origins of Tumblr

115 points by jamesbritt 13y ago

androidb 13y ago
Just as Steve Wozniak's invention wouldn't have been anything more than a simple hobbyist's device without Jobs, Neukirchen's creation wouldn't have had even remotely the same impact without Karp's ideas.
- glurgh 13y ago
  Not to detract anything from Neukirchen's and Karp's perfectly laudable efforts and achievements but the Woz/Jobs comparisons (including those in Marco Arment's recent blog post) are facile and specious. Woz's design was strikingly cheaper and more capable than anything else on the market and then it was successfully marketed as the first personal computer with wide consumer adoption. In the seven years it's taken Tumblr to exit by acquisition Apple: Developed and launched the first popular consumer personal computer. Developed and launched the first popular consumer personal computer with a GUI. Became highly profitable Offered the biggest IPO in decades It's not the same ballpark or game.
  - Uchikoma 13y ago
    I, For One, Welcome Our New Steve 'Woz' Wozniak Correct Place in History Overlords. And the rumors about me are lies, I'm true to the gospel, he did not only develop a computer like dozens of others did.
buro9 13y ago
> "I tried all of the great tools that were around at the time—WordPress, Blogger—and obviously all the specialized tools—Flickr for photos and YouTube for videos—and I kept falling down. I was perfectly happy with all these tools but at the same time, constantly frustrated by the limitations imposed by all of them." That is the biggest driving force behind the project I'm working on http://microco.sm/ http://microco.sm/ The limitations of the software that powers forums and communities crushes me. I feel that communities are incredible, have so much potential, and that they have the ability to be more than the sum of their members, to create so much magic through serendipity, and when the tools communities use get in the way of this... then I feel a deep sense of loss over what should have been but isn't, the wasted potential. It is such a profound and deep feeling, and one that resonates so much with the users of communities I've spoken to that users of forums funded our seed round, that users are supporting us as we build it, and that we felt that we had to quit our jobs and work on this... this needs to exist. The constraints today feel like chains, and the desire to break those and free the potential is frequently overwhelming. It creates a really powerful driving force to bring this into existence and do it justice, to free the potential of a community.
- kfk 13y ago
  I like the idea of working out a better forum experience, but your page does not really explain where and why you are different. Maybe you should include a section for this somewhere.
  - buro9 13y ago
    That page is out-of-date and we're re-writing it. We actually launched 2 weeks ago, got a load of feedback and active users, and are currently re-prioritising in the light of all that feedback. The biggest difference is that within a forum, instead of just "posts in threads", a whole slew of things can exist and are properly structured... events, classifieds, galleries, polls, Q&A, wiki pages, articles, reviews. No-one has to adapt a thread to be an event as an event type exists with time, place, attendees, etc. Imagine the first 80% of common functionality of a meetup.com page or eventbrite page and imagine that inside a forum and that a conversation about it can also exist. Then imagine the same for ebay adverts, magazine reviews, long-form articles, wiki-pages, surveys, etc. And none of that stuff is global, it's not outside of the forum but on the same site, it's deep within the forums, right there beside the "posts in threads". Instead of a community fragmenting and externalising themselves across the web, or struggling to fit everything into a threaded conversation... every tool a community needs gets surfaced within a forum... and even sub-forums. Then imagine that instead of site admins and technical people determining which sites exist and the structure of them, that the users themselves get to define it. They can create their own sites, and their own spaces within existing sites. The simplest way to explain this today would be sub-reddits, but what if creating a whole new reddit.com was also available... so that the strength of identity of a community could be fully realised. Basically, imagine forums that could be created in seconds, and have all of the ways in which communities and sub-communities communicate and transact dealt with in the one place. Instead of ebay or meetup.com trying to build a community around their classifieds or events... imagine instead bringing the additional functionality that communities require and embedding it deep within the place that the community already hangout.
    - arkitaip 13y ago
      What are your thoughts on Discourse? They are also aiming to change the discussion board space.
seeingfurther 13y ago
Yawn... another bs blog post about how this tech is a derivative of thi... Zzzzzzzz
burriko 13y ago
It often seems to get missed that it was Why the lucky stiff that first coined the phrase tumblelog, which is where the name Tumblr comes from. Even this article just refers to him as a 'user of Redhanded.com'.
- pygy_ 13y ago
  Yes, it's _why who coined the word.
eliasmacpherson 13y ago
This data structure was linked in one of the screengrabs, very interesting! http://cr.yp.to/critbit.html http://cr.yp.to/critbit.html
ebellity 13y ago
Funny that in the origins of both Tumblr and Twitter, there is a remote German Ruby-on-Rails developer !
- qznc 13y ago
  Neukirchen did not use Rails, just Ruby. He named his tool Nukumi2 http://raa.ruby-lang.org/project/nukumi2/ http://raa.ruby-lang.org/project/nukumi2/
swah 13y ago
Wow, I used to love Anarchaia. Didn't remember it started a style.
vijucat 13y ago
> "The people who plant the seed are often forgotten through history," Molina said. "Even though one could arguably associate substantial or equal credit to them. I'm not saying that's what I want. I just think it's interesting how the last one wins." So humble and non-resentful of him! Very impressive, given that the other party just made a billion out of it, literally.
mherdeg 13y ago
It's a little bit like Tesla and Edison, isn't it? Or at least the late-90's-technology-community mythology about them. The world has smart people who invent new things and have interesting life stories and cool products (Tesla). The world also has smart people who invent new things and have interesting life stories and cool products and make a lot of money with razor-sharp execution (Edison). Even as folks love to lionize Tesla, it seems to me that this community is more interested in entrepreneurs than inventors. This was a fun story to read because it did a good job conveying how everything everyone builds ultimately has a history — there are interesting cultural trends that, if you watch them, can help explain why things are the way they are today. (At least that's the theory. To be honest, knowing a fair amount about the history of TXTMob does not give me a good sense for where Twitter is going today.)
- mbrock 13y ago
  One of the takeaways might be that entrepreneurs looking to make something shiny and earn money might stop trying to come up with their own great ideas, and instead look at what the clever hackers are playing with for fun right now.
krenoten 13y ago
"The people who plant the seed are often forgotten through history," Molina said. "Even though one could arguably associate substantial or equal credit to them. I'm not saying that's what I want. I just think it's interesting how the last one wins." There is an important concept of the second/late/last mover at play. The explorer emperor is not as common as you would be forgiven for believing after taking an econ 101 class. They have fewer failures to motivate changes of course.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
NelsonMinar 13y ago
It's a well researched article, but I hate how the author did his best to frame this as some controversy of "who invented what first". Molina and Neukirchen both explicitly refuse to blame or resent Karp in any way, despite given repeated opportunities. One of the best things about the Internet is it is a medium that encourages sharing and reinvention of ideas. Google is "just" an iteration on Altavista. Hacker News is "just" a subreddit. Twitter is "just" a .plan file. But of course that misses all the years of innovation, scaling, and polish. The way Tumblr drew inspiration from a couple of personal blogs is to be praised, not looked askance at.
- kmfrk 13y ago
  I wonder how many still remember Jaiku and Pownce (don't google them, no cheating!)
  - Spytap 13y ago
    Ah yes - I remember the great Pownce invite economy of 2007. Meanwhile, Jaiku was where we all threatened to move whenever twitter went down (again, some more.)
gcb0 13y ago
This website is a textbook of bad design... They forbid zoom in mobile browser but restrict the viewport... Can only see the left navbar and 5 words from the article
- jamesbritt 13y ago
  Interesting. I read this on my G2, which by no means has an uptodate browser, and it rendered fine, including zoom.

115 points by jamesbritt 13y ago

Just as Steve Wozniak's invention wouldn't have been anything more than a simple hobbyist's device without Jobs, Neukirchen's creation wouldn't have had even remotely the same impact without Karp's ideas.

glurgh 13y ago
Not to detract anything from Neukirchen's and Karp's perfectly laudable efforts and achievements but the Woz/Jobs comparisons (including those in Marco Arment's recent blog post) are facile and specious. Woz's design was strikingly cheaper and more capable than anything else on the market and then it was successfully marketed as the first personal computer with wide consumer adoption. In the seven years it's taken Tumblr to exit by acquisition Apple: Developed and launched the first popular consumer personal computer. Developed and launched the first popular consumer personal computer with a GUI. Became highly profitable Offered the biggest IPO in decades It's not the same ballpark or game.
- Uchikoma 13y ago
  I, For One, Welcome Our New Steve 'Woz' Wozniak Correct Place in History Overlords. And the rumors about me are lies, I'm true to the gospel, he did not only develop a computer like dozens of others did.

buro9 13y ago

> "I tried all of the great tools that were around at the time—WordPress, Blogger—and obviously all the specialized tools—Flickr for photos and YouTube for videos—and I kept falling down. I was perfectly happy with all these tools but at the same time, constantly frustrated by the limitations imposed by all of them." That is the biggest driving force behind the project I'm working on http://microco.sm/ http://microco.sm/ The limitations of the software that powers forums and communities crushes me. I feel that communities are incredible, have so much potential, and that they have the ability to be more than the sum of their members, to create so much magic through serendipity, and when the tools communities use get in the way of this... then I feel a deep sense of loss over what should have been but isn't, the wasted potential. It is such a profound and deep feeling, and one that resonates so much with the users of communities I've spoken to that users of forums funded our seed round, that users are supporting us as we build it, and that we felt that we had to quit our jobs and work on this... this needs to exist. The constraints today feel like chains, and the desire to break those and free the potential is frequently overwhelming. It creates a really powerful driving force to bring this into existence and do it justice, to free the potential of a community.

kfk 13y ago
I like the idea of working out a better forum experience, but your page does not really explain where and why you are different. Maybe you should include a section for this somewhere.
- buro9 13y ago
  That page is out-of-date and we're re-writing it. We actually launched 2 weeks ago, got a load of feedback and active users, and are currently re-prioritising in the light of all that feedback. The biggest difference is that within a forum, instead of just "posts in threads", a whole slew of things can exist and are properly structured... events, classifieds, galleries, polls, Q&A, wiki pages, articles, reviews. No-one has to adapt a thread to be an event as an event type exists with time, place, attendees, etc. Imagine the first 80% of common functionality of a meetup.com page or eventbrite page and imagine that inside a forum and that a conversation about it can also exist. Then imagine the same for ebay adverts, magazine reviews, long-form articles, wiki-pages, surveys, etc. And none of that stuff is global, it's not outside of the forum but on the same site, it's deep within the forums, right there beside the "posts in threads". Instead of a community fragmenting and externalising themselves across the web, or struggling to fit everything into a threaded conversation... every tool a community needs gets surfaced within a forum... and even sub-forums. Then imagine that instead of site admins and technical people determining which sites exist and the structure of them, that the users themselves get to define it. They can create their own sites, and their own spaces within existing sites. The simplest way to explain this today would be sub-reddits, but what if creating a whole new reddit.com was also available... so that the strength of identity of a community could be fully realised. Basically, imagine forums that could be created in seconds, and have all of the ways in which communities and sub-communities communicate and transact dealt with in the one place. Instead of ebay or meetup.com trying to build a community around their classifieds or events... imagine instead bringing the additional functionality that communities require and embedding it deep within the place that the community already hangout.
  - arkitaip 13y ago
    What are your thoughts on Discourse? They are also aiming to change the discussion board space.

seeingfurther 13y ago

Yawn... another bs blog post about how this tech is a derivative of thi... Zzzzzzzz

burriko 13y ago

It often seems to get missed that it was Why the lucky stiff that first coined the phrase tumblelog, which is where the name Tumblr comes from. Even this article just refers to him as a 'user of Redhanded.com'.

pygy_ 13y ago
Yes, it's _why who coined the word.

eliasmacpherson 13y ago

This data structure was linked in one of the screengrabs, very interesting! http://cr.yp.to/critbit.html http://cr.yp.to/critbit.html

ebellity 13y ago

Funny that in the origins of both Tumblr and Twitter, there is a remote German Ruby-on-Rails developer !

qznc 13y ago
Neukirchen did not use Rails, just Ruby. He named his tool Nukumi2 http://raa.ruby-lang.org/project/nukumi2/ http://raa.ruby-lang.org/project/nukumi2/

swah 13y ago

Wow, I used to love Anarchaia. Didn't remember it started a style.

vijucat 13y ago

> "The people who plant the seed are often forgotten through history," Molina said. "Even though one could arguably associate substantial or equal credit to them. I'm not saying that's what I want. I just think it's interesting how the last one wins." So humble and non-resentful of him! Very impressive, given that the other party just made a billion out of it, literally.

mherdeg 13y ago

It's a little bit like Tesla and Edison, isn't it? Or at least the late-90's-technology-community mythology about them. The world has smart people who invent new things and have interesting life stories and cool products (Tesla). The world also has smart people who invent new things and have interesting life stories and cool products and make a lot of money with razor-sharp execution (Edison). Even as folks love to lionize Tesla, it seems to me that this community is more interested in entrepreneurs than inventors. This was a fun story to read because it did a good job conveying how everything everyone builds ultimately has a history — there are interesting cultural trends that, if you watch them, can help explain why things are the way they are today. (At least that's the theory. To be honest, knowing a fair amount about the history of TXTMob does not give me a good sense for where Twitter is going today.)

mbrock 13y ago
One of the takeaways might be that entrepreneurs looking to make something shiny and earn money might stop trying to come up with their own great ideas, and instead look at what the clever hackers are playing with for fun right now.

krenoten 13y ago

"The people who plant the seed are often forgotten through history," Molina said. "Even though one could arguably associate substantial or equal credit to them. I'm not saying that's what I want. I just think it's interesting how the last one wins." There is an important concept of the second/late/last mover at play. The explorer emperor is not as common as you would be forgiven for believing after taking an econ 101 class. They have fewer failures to motivate changes of course.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

NelsonMinar 13y ago

It's a well researched article, but I hate how the author did his best to frame this as some controversy of "who invented what first". Molina and Neukirchen both explicitly refuse to blame or resent Karp in any way, despite given repeated opportunities. One of the best things about the Internet is it is a medium that encourages sharing and reinvention of ideas. Google is "just" an iteration on Altavista. Hacker News is "just" a subreddit. Twitter is "just" a .plan file. But of course that misses all the years of innovation, scaling, and polish. The way Tumblr drew inspiration from a couple of personal blogs is to be praised, not looked askance at.

kmfrk 13y ago
I wonder how many still remember Jaiku and Pownce (don't google them, no cheating!)
- Spytap 13y ago
  Ah yes - I remember the great Pownce invite economy of 2007. Meanwhile, Jaiku was where we all threatened to move whenever twitter went down (again, some more.)

gcb0 13y ago

This website is a textbook of bad design... They forbid zoom in mobile browser but restrict the viewport... Can only see the left navbar and 5 words from the article

jamesbritt 13y ago
Interesting. I read this on my G2, which by no means has an uptodate browser, and it rendered fine, including zoom.