#if i wanted general promotion i'd go to one of the promotion-driven sites designed entirely for that kind of dog-eat-dog consumption

[nachosncheezies]

okay so.

i'm extremely dubious about staff's claims, but i'm willing to allow a 5% possibility that those of us who this post calls a 'small minority' might actually be a minority... and only because my experience IS curated, to the extent that I may have created my own echo chamber that is somehow so secure that i have literally never seen this phantom 'majority' who they keep saying actually want this stuff. (i can only imagine that this 'majority' are not actually users, but rather an amalgam of current and potential users that they're trying to recruit based off some nebulous market research, although like the commenter above i daresay that if you took five minutes to teach people in those focus groups or whatever how to interact with something OTHER than a meta-style interface they'd be SUPER ONBOARD with what we've got here already, but i digress.) I can empathize with wanting/needing to 'grow' the company and userbase because our whole goddamn world runs on the falsehood of infinite growth and maybe you need to play the game a bit to keep up with the assholes.

THAT SAID.

there already is an algorithm! it's on the 'for you' and 'popular reblogs' tabs! and when i want to find something new from outside my bubble to pass around? I LOOK THERE! :D

the important thing is that it's my choice when and how i interact with that. i absolutely DO NOT want that forced on me.

now. if you have to put one of those as the tab that opens first and make the 'following' tab second then fair enough i guess. it's an extra click/tap for me, which would be annoying, but if algorithmic view is gonna attract enough of the The Youngs or something to keep the site afloat through some voodoo i am truly not convinced exists then sure.

but the algorithm-free view MUST stay. i DO NOT have all day to wade through stuff i didn't ask for!!! and if the dash starts wasting my time that way, i'll be here less! not more!

also.

i am a 'creator'. i personally do not want randos to 'discover' my creations. this is not a business for me, it's a hobby, and what i make i make for me and my ~10 weird little friends. would i like more feedback from the fringe of lurkers that surrounds our group? absolutely. am i happy when a new fan who's enthusiastic enough to seek us out finds and engages with my stuff? of course! these are the people i create for; people whose enthusiasm for a thing matches my own.

what i am absolutely NOT here for is to have my stuff pushed and promoted to casual random browsers with no connection to my fandom. that kind of attention would actually be a net negative for me.

anyway. what the above user said is generally bang on. my reasons for being here are: 1. I have control.

that's it. that's the only reason. this is the only place left where i can preserve my public anonymity and curate my own experience. this is my happy place where current events don't exist unless i want them to. strife and the kind of [oft-overheated] debates fostered by the rest of the internet can not reach me unless i seek them out. here, i am zen. take that away and i'm sorry but... i'm not gonna stay just because 'there's nowhere else and it's better than nothing'. because for me, it's not. at present, it's a tool that makes sharing positivity and creativity a little easier. what would life be without tumblr? not ideal, but before i found here i did other things with this time. trolling ao3. reading books. listening to podcasts. email pen pals exist. i have some that i took with me when i ditched other social media. who wouldn't love a few more? and happily, gifs work as attachments!

all told, i'm not naive enough to think i'm not being data mined to an extent here. that's sadly just how the internet works now and infuriatingly it's inescapable. for me, tumblr's genius and appeal rests on the fact that it's a two-way street. i have a measure of meaningful control over both what's harvested and what i'm fed. take that away and make the user the only product you're selling?

well hey, besties. anyone wanna be pen pals? :)

Tumblr’s Core Product Strategy

Here at Tumblr, we’ve been working hard on reorganizing how we work in a bid to gain more users. A larger user base means a more sustainable company, and means we get to stick around and do this thing with you all a bit longer. What follows is the strategy we're using to accomplish the goal of user growth. The @labs group has published a bit already, but this is bigger. We’re publishing it publicly for the first time, in an effort to work more transparently with all of you in the Tumblr community. This strategy provides guidance amid limited resources, allowing our teams to focus on specific key areas to ensure Tumblr’s future.

The Diagnosis

In order for Tumblr to grow, we need to fix the core experience that makes Tumblr a useful place for users. The underlying problem is that Tumblr is not easy to use. Historically, we have expected users to curate their feeds and lean into curating their experience. But this expectation introduces friction to the user experience and only serves a small portion of our audience. 

Tumblr’s competitive advantage lies in its unique content and vibrant communities. As the forerunner of internet culture, Tumblr encompasses a wide range of interests, such as entertainment, art, gaming, fandom, fashion, and music. People come to Tumblr to immerse themselves in this culture, making it essential for us to ensure a seamless connection between people and content. 

To guarantee Tumblr’s continued success, we’ve got to prioritize fostering that seamless connection between people and content. This involves attracting and retaining new users and creators, nurturing their growth, and encouraging frequent engagement with the platform.

Our Guiding Principles

To enhance Tumblr’s usability, we must address these core guiding principles.

Expand the ways new users can discover and sign up for Tumblr.

Provide high-quality content with every app launch.

Facilitate easier user participation in conversations.

Retain and grow our creator base.

Create patterns that encourage users to keep returning to Tumblr.

Improve the platform’s performance, stability, and quality.

Below is a deep dive into each of these principles.

Principle 1: Expand the ways new users can discover and sign up for Tumblr.

Tumblr has a “top of the funnel” issue in converting non-users into engaged logged-in users. We also have not invested in industry standard SEO practices to ensure a robust top of the funnel. The referral traffic that we do get from external sources is dispersed across different pages with inconsistent user experiences, which results in a missed opportunity to convert these users into regular Tumblr users. For example, users from search engines often land on pages within the blog network and blog view—where there isn’t much of a reason to sign up. 

We need to experiment with logged-out tumblr.com to ensure we are capturing the highest potential conversion rate for visitors into sign-ups and log-ins. We might want to explore showing the potential future user the full breadth of content that Tumblr has to offer on our logged-out pages. We want people to be able to easily understand the potential behind Tumblr without having to navigate multiple tabs and pages to figure it out. Our current logged-out explore page does very little to help users understand “what is Tumblr.” which is a missed opportunity to get people excited about joining the site.

Actions & Next Steps

Improving Tumblr’s search engine optimization (SEO) practices to be in line with industry standards.

Experiment with logged out tumblr.com to achieve the highest conversion rate for sign-ups and log-ins, explore ways for visitors to “get” Tumblr and entice them to sign up.

Principle 2: Provide high-quality content with every app launch.

We need to ensure the highest quality user experience by presenting fresh and relevant content tailored to the user’s diverse interests during each session. If the user has a bad content experience, the fault lies with the product.

The default position should always be that the user does not know how to navigate the application. Additionally, we need to ensure that when people search for content related to their interests, it is easily accessible without any confusing limitations or unexpected roadblocks in their journey.

Being a 15-year-old brand is tough because the brand carries the baggage of a person’s preconceived impressions of Tumblr. On average, a user only sees 25 posts per session, so the first 25 posts have to convey the value of Tumblr: it is a vibrant community with lots of untapped potential. We never want to leave the user believing that Tumblr is a place that is stale and not relevant. 

Actions & Next Steps

Deliver great content each time the app is opened.

Make it easier for users to understand where the vibrant communities on Tumblr are. 

Improve our algorithmic ranking capabilities across all feeds. 

Principle 3: Facilitate easier user participation in conversations.

Part of Tumblr’s charm lies in its capacity to showcase the evolution of conversations and the clever remarks found within reblog chains and replies. Engaging in these discussions should be enjoyable and effortless.

Unfortunately, the current way that conversations work on Tumblr across replies and reblogs is confusing for new users. The limitations around engaging with individual reblogs, replies only applying to the original post, and the inability to easily follow threaded conversations make it difficult for users to join the conversation.

Actions & Next Steps

Address the confusion within replies and reblogs.

Improve the conversational posting features around replies and reblogs. 

Allow engagements on individual replies and reblogs.

Make it easier for users to follow the various conversation paths within a reblog thread. 

Remove clutter in the conversation by collapsing reblog threads. 

Explore the feasibility of removing duplicate reblogs within a user’s Following feed. 

Principle 4: Retain and grow our creator base.

Creators are essential to the Tumblr community. However, we haven’t always had a consistent and coordinated effort around retaining, nurturing, and growing our creator base.  

Being a new creator on Tumblr can be intimidating, with a high likelihood of leaving or disappointment upon sharing creations without receiving engagement or feedback. We need to ensure that we have the expected creator tools and foster the rewarding feedback loops that keep creators around and enable them to thrive.

The lack of feedback stems from the outdated decision to only show content from followed blogs on the main dashboard feed (“Following”), perpetuating a cycle where popular blogs continue to gain more visibility at the expense of helping new creators. To address this, we need to prioritize supporting and nurturing the growth of new creators on the platform.

It is also imperative that creators, like everyone on Tumblr, feel safe and in control of their experience. Whether it be an ask from the community or engagement on a post, being successful on Tumblr should never feel like a punishing experience.

Actions & Next Steps

Get creators’ new content in front of people who are interested in it. 

Improve the feedback loop for creators, incentivizing them to continue posting.

Build mechanisms to protect creators from being spammed by notifications when they go viral.

Expand ways to co-create content, such as by adding the capability to embed Tumblr links in posts.

Principle 5: Create patterns that encourage users to keep returning to Tumblr.

Push notifications and emails are essential tools to increase user engagement, improve user retention, and facilitate content discovery. Our strategy of reaching out to you, the user, should be well-coordinated across product, commercial, and marketing teams.

Our messaging strategy needs to be personalized and adapt to a user’s shifting interests. Our messages should keep users in the know on the latest activity in their community, as well as keeping Tumblr top of mind as the place to go for witty takes and remixes of the latest shows and real-life events.  

Most importantly, our messages should be thoughtful and should never come across as spammy.  

Actions & Next Steps

Conduct an audit of our messaging strategy.

Address the issue of notifications getting too noisy; throttle, collapse or mute notifications where necessary.  

Identify opportunities for personalization within our email messages. 

Test what the right daily push notification limit is. 

Send emails when a user has push notifications switched off.

Principle 6: Performance, stability and quality.

The stability and performance of our mobile apps have declined. There is a large backlog of production issues, with more bugs created than resolved over the last 300 days. If this continues, roughly one new unresolved production issue will be created every two days. Apps and backend systems that work well and don't crash are the foundation of a great Tumblr experience. Improving performance, stability, and quality will help us achieve sustainable operations for Tumblr.

Improve performance and stability: deliver crash-free, responsive, and fast-loading apps on Android, iOS, and web.

Improve quality: deliver the highest quality Tumblr experience to our users. 

Move faster: provide APIs and services to unblock core product initiatives and launch new features coming out of Labs.

Conclusion

Our mission has always been to empower the world’s creators. We are wholly committed to ensuring Tumblr evolves in a way that supports our current users while improving areas that attract new creators, artists, and users. You deserve a digital home that works for you. You deserve the best tools and features to connect with your communities on a platform that prioritizes the easy discoverability of high-quality content. This is an invigorating time for Tumblr, and we couldn’t be more excited about our current strategy.