Akshay noticed I was so annoyed with Tumblr that he suggested I write this post detailing our move and urging other startups to do the same.
As much as this is a very staunch gesture, I think it's a very valid one. Tumblr has a huge, active, and connected community. It can be a great entry point for niche startups to find users and build an audience, but the performance and stability just does not cut the mustard.
I greatly want tumblr to succeed, their platform is very fresh, the theme garden model they have fits their mold perfectly (although the premium marketplace seems to be extremely esoteric) but I also hope this suggestion for startups to choose an alternative platform kicks tumblr in some sort of direction to improve the QoS.
It is still possible to create a Tumblr blog that pulls the RSS from your site, though. You can just tell it to only display the URL and title so you don't get an SEO mess.
Not perfect, of course, but it still gives you a slight chance to use Tumblr's amazing sharing platform.
You are correct. That's actually one of my favorite features tumblr has, it reminds me much of a site I used back in the 2000's called SideBlog. It worked exactly the same way, drop in a line of javascript and it pulled in your posts and you could design everything around it.
This kind of reinforces my earlier commentary, tumblr has some great features and awesome integration, but their performance and reliability always make me steer clear when needing to put up a blog for a client.
As much as this is a very staunch gesture, I think it's a very valid one. Tumblr has a huge, active, and connected community. It can be a great entry point for niche startups to find users and build an audience, but the performance and stability just does not cut the mustard.
I greatly want tumblr to succeed, their platform is very fresh, the theme garden model they have fits their mold perfectly (although the premium marketplace seems to be extremely esoteric) but I also hope this suggestion for startups to choose an alternative platform kicks tumblr in some sort of direction to improve the QoS.