Tumblarity Sucks - Fail... or not

11th May 2009

Post reblogged from Trapped in Time with 11 notes

Fail… or not

Tumblarity fails on a lot of levels, but most notably these:

If you’re part of a group, or a group administrator, you can no longer view who your followers are. Clicking the followers button takes you to your individual blog’s list of followers. How does functionality get eliminated (in a buggy manner) that is so integral to what this service has offered in the past?

For the vast majority of users, the index ‘tumblarity’ score means nothing, and will continue to have no meaning other than the associated ranking that tells you that x amount of people are doing it better than you. If this is a ploy to increase usage (which judging by this index could actually negatively affect your score), it’s a pretty lame one. I don’t want to look at an arbitrary index that tells me how popular I am (even if according to this, I am popular).

This index doesn’t seem to account for traffic that comes to your site, which means it’s only internally facing and thus a flawed metric in many ways

Where is an ‘x’ next to the different areas of this statistical dashboard that allow you to turn different pieces off? i.e. I like being able to see what types of posts I’ve made in the last week, as well as how much I’ve reblogged vs how much original content I’ve posted. However, I’d rather not see any rankings, or an indexed score. Rather than dictating what all users get to see without any beta testing or feedback, how about bringing the community into the process rather than telling us this is how you will now use the service? What’s next, a rating next to your name for all users to judge you on as your posts pop up on their dashboard? A filter for only popular posts and bloggers?

Including the word popularity in all the new features is a turn off for a lot of people. Come up with some language and branding that isn’t so narcissistic. But hey, if we’re going to get narcissistic here, why isn’t there a ruler with the size of your tumblr cock next to it?

I believe in constructive criticism, so let me give props where they’re due:

The interface is strong, clean, and impactful on the eyes

Viewing statistics useful to you as a user (i.e. breakdowns on posts, graphs, etc…) from within tumblr rather than third-party developers has been a long time coming. Thanks for this.

Aggregating recent changes in followers (and hopefully likes and reblogs in the future) is useful for a snapshot of activity related to your blog

I joined tumblr because it was quick and easy to use, more interactive and community-based than any other blogging platform, and fun to use. I’ve made a lot of real-life friends through here, and got some of my own friends to join and participate with me. However, choice is always a plus. Shoving new features down that are so in your face seems to run counter intuitive to the choices you have in how you interact with others and who it is you are interacting with.

And yes, I am voicing my opinion. If you disagree with me, feel free. If my contrariety bothers you, they’ve thankfully left the unfollow button intact.

Source: trappedintime