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.
hate to say it but the key to having things solved by big company customer service is you just gotta stretch the truth with them. or straight up lie. actually. was on the phone for 3 hours because they sent something to the wrong address and spoke to 10 different departments trying to figure out if anyone could go fucking get it and they're like "uhhh but can you go get it" bitch I'm 8 hours away by car, I don't live in the house where you sent it.
took a moment to think, called back and was just like. Hi. My package was stolen off the porch!!! Saw the cunt steal it myself!! Anyway can you please send new things to this other address for free since that's your policy for stolen goods thank you~☆ ! and it was immediately solved.
One more kinda unethical tip. If someone's telling you they won't do something, don't argue - just pay attention to the specific words they use to describe the thing they won't do (like deactivate your account / delete your records) - then say they're cracking up on you, ask them what they just said, and a few seconds later put your phone in airplane mode so it looks like the call dropped.
Then call the call center back like "Hi, I was speaking to one of your colleagues, he was helping me deactivate my account and delete my records with you - but I could barely hear and the call dropped just before we were done! This dang phone!! Can you check if it's deactivated - and help me finish up with that if it's not?"
That way you can skip arguing whether you're allowed to deactivate the account - acting like you already had permission, and that you just need help finishing off where the first guy left off.
It'll be believable, and go fast, because if you use the exact words they use internally, it'll look like you already went through the whole song-and-dance of the script their boss makes them read, and already checked all the boxes their boss makes them check with the last guy.
And you probably won't get in shit for lying - who's to say if you actually heard the first guy say he wouldn't do it or not?
Having a bad day? push play, and within six seconds all you will feel is tears of laughter streaming down your face and the stomach cramps of laughing too hard.
I have a great fondness for places that are so often written off as lifeless and dead, barren, empty. Places like the abyss of the sea, the parched desert, the abandoned buildings, graveyards. Because so often these places are teeming with life if only you look a little closer. It’s not the usual life we see in fields of green and sage, but it’s life all its own and just as interesting and surprising and worthwhile.
Deserts, especially the more parched and sun-baked and less green, are so often labelled as dead and ugly.
But you’ll find, if you stop, and sit still, and listen, life right under your own feet. Teeming and thriving even if in colors and experiences foreign to our senses. Insects buzz and lizards sun themselves. Many animals of deserts are quiet. They are silent, unobtrusive. But often their cries, when risking sound is worth the danger, when reaching out into the landscape for company or comfort is worth the effort, their cries travel far, echoing and changing shape as they pass over the landscape.
Deserts are said to be dead and lifeless because they are nothing but brown, but even if this were true, (it’s not. Have you seen the rich reds of of sedimentary rocks, the blue of an uninterrupted sky? The rainbows thrown from golden paint at sunset and sunrise? The glittering fool’s gold of a sea of sand?) even if this were true, how beautiful is brown? Deserts aren’t just brown but ochre and turmeric and shades of fire and gold and tiger’s eye and bone white and shadows of indigo and woad. Brown is the color of our earth, it is a primeval color, one of the first to emerge on our earth after black igneous volcanism cooled and bleached to white under a newborn sun billions of years ago.
Life in deserts is unobtrusive and asks us to sit and breathe and wait. Deserts do not readily show their life and their beauty but ask you to be patient; “wait,” they say. “Wait and you will see if you are quiet. We do not live in loneliness but submit to solitude.” Deserts ask us to simply Be, in spaces where the vulnerability of our selves, fragile and fleeting, exists in a space wider and grander than ourselves, a mirrored microcosm of our place in the universe.
Deserts are beautiful and full of life if only you are willing to wait, to see, to graciously accept rhythms and timescales different from your own. They are filled with solitudinous life, but not lifeless. Not empty. Rich in color and wonder comparable to any forest and meadow and softer place for living.
Deserts are strange and different, but ask only that you be willing to accept that difference, and they will show you incredible things.
you do not have to be a type of person to learn about any particular topic. and you do not have to aim to learn everything when you go learning about any particular topic. you can just aim your brain in a direction and expand your world, as much as you want. even if you struggle to learn new things, you might learn one or two things that change your life for the better. your world can only be comprised of what you put into your life. make your world bigger by adding something new!
1. Try to reconnect with an old friend from the past – even if it’s just by social media.
2. Get outside and enjoy the fresh air – and notice the beauty and the freedom you sense there.
3. Read a good book – and enjoy being inspired and imaging a life in a different kind of world.
4. Get on your bike, jog, or go to the gym – as exercise is great for improving your mood.
5. Chat to the people who serve you in the store, or at the coffee shop … or anywhere you are – it can make you feel a part of that greater world out there.
6. Listen to some music that makes you feel alive, and maybe even dance, or try to sing along to it.
7. Remind yourself it’s normal to be alone at times, and you don’t need other people to give you self-esteem.
@eddiemate hey bud, so your timeline consists of posts/reblogs made by the people you follow. sometimes you'll see things from tags you follow, but 98% of the time it'll be made of actual people posting and reblogging things. if the people you follow aren't active, you won't see any change to your timeline.
so you might just want to follow more people
(and turn off the 'best stuff first' in the settings, time isn't real but it's better than the void deciding what you'll enjoy)
Okay but also putting the panic aside part of what is going on here is that I'm feeling stressed because I'm feeling helpless; I could be cleaning right now but I am at work so it's just a thing that's sitting there hovering over me and filling me with anxiety so ignoring the specifics of my weird timing and odd mess situation, here's the "So You're a Disaster Guide to Preparing Your Home for Guests"
Here are the things you should be able to offer your overnight guests:
A clean and comfortable place to sleep with clean sheets, pillows, and blankets.
A clean and sanitary bathroom with towels (and, optionally, toiletries)
Depending on the space you've got, a comfortable place to spend time outside of the area they will be sleeping in (this may also be your primary socializing or relaxing space)
Access to clean dishes and a source for (at the very least) water (and possibly snacks/drinks/meals depending on the length of the stay and your relationship to your guests).
Here's a quick guide to providing those things in the shortest amount of time possible based on order of importance.
Make sure that you've got clean bedclothes and towels for your guest; if you do not have these things immediately at hand your first priority is doing a load of laundry to get clean towels, sheets, and blankets for your guest [and wash bath mats if necessary].
Tidy the area they will be sleeping in by clearing away clutter. Your goal is to achieve an unobstructed sleeping surface (so if they're sleeping on a fold-out couch or a futon in a shared space make sure that it will require minimal effort to turn into a bed when they are ready to sleep; if they are sleeping on an air mattress move any furniture blocking the mattress out of the way and inflate the mattress then make the bed; if they are in a guest room make sure that anything stored on or near the bed is cleared away then make up the bed). Provide a space for your guest to put any travel bags and provide a place near their sleeping area for them to put their phone/medications/glass of water/etc. that they may need in the night.
[This is where you stop and move on to the next area unless you have lots of time. If you have lots of time, completely sweep or vacuum the floor of your guest's space, dust the room, and ensure that there is a power strip or phone charger handy for your guest]
Make sure the bathroom they will be using is clean and functional (it's actually a tossup for me about whether you clean the bathroom or the sleeping area first; I'm less willing to clean a bathroom while guests are present than a sleeping area so I'd say bathroom first honestly). My recommendation for this is to do things in the following order (make sure the space is well ventilated):
- Spray a cleaning solution in the tub or shower, focusing on any problem areas.
- Let that sit while you spray the same cleaning solution in the sink.
- Let that sit while you use a brush and your preferred toilet cleaning solution to scrub the toilet bowl.
- Use a brush or sponge to scrub the shower/tub then rinse the shower/tub.
- Use a brush or sponge to scrub the sink then rinse the sink.
- Use a cloth with a cleaning solution or a cleaning wipe to clean the exterior of the toilet
- Use a cloth to wipe down any surfaces like the countertop
- Place fresh hand towels in the bathroom
- Sweep and spot-mop the floor then empty the trashcan and spot clean the mirror tada clean bathroom
[This is where you stop and move on to the next area unless you have lots of time; if you have lots of time do a full mop of the bathroom floor, clean the mirror, and dust any surfaces that need it]
Clean the kitchen in the following order:
- Put away any clean dishes
- Clear countertops of clutter
- Wash any dirty dishes or load them into the dishwasher so that the sink is clear and rinse the sink
- Use a cloth with a cleaning solution or cleaning wipes to wipe down countertops, dust appliances, and do a quick wipe-down of the range.
- Place fresh hand towels in the kitchen
- Sweep the floor and empty the trash
[This is where you stop and move on to the next area unless you have lots of time, if you have lots of time mop the floor, do a deep clean of countertops, clean and sanitize the sink, check whether your refrigerator needs to be cleared of aging food or have any spills cleaned up, clean the kitchen range, and clean the oven door]
Prepare a living room for your guests in the following order:
- Make sure there are clear seats available for at least every adult who will be in the household; pick up and put away crafts, toys, or projects that may be in the way of visitors.
- Clear the surfaces of tables next to any seating options so that a seated person could easily set down a drink; consider placing coasters on each of these surfaces so they are handy if someone wants one.
- Sweep or vacuum the floor as needed.
[This is where you stop and move on unless you have lots of time; if you have lots of time consider vacuuming the creases of furniture, dusting shelves and surfaces in the room, and possibly cleaning the windows.]
My approach to this is basically "if you were picking someone up from the airport at midnight and bringing them back to your home, would they be able to get ready for bed and comfortably go to sleep right away?" which is why things are prioritized the way they are. Things would be different if I were cleaning in preparation for a party or if I were having people over for dinner, this is just the 'clean a house after you get off work and before you get in the car to go to LAX' list.
Here’s a “life-hack” for you.
Apparently concentrated Kool-Aid can be used as a pretty effective leather dye.
I was making a drink while cutting the snaps off some new straps for my pauldrons and I got curious, so I tried it, thinking, “ok even if this works, it will just wash out.”
Nope.
It took the “dye” (undiluted) in about 3 seconds. After drying for about an hour and a half, it would not wash off in the hottest tap-water. It would not wash out after soaking for 30 minutes.
It did not wash out until I BOILED it, and even then, only by a tiny bit and it gave it a weathered look that was kind of cool.
Add some waterproofing and I’d wager it would survive even that.
That rich red is only one application too.
Plus it smells great, lol.
So there you go, cheap, fruity smelling leather dye in all the colors Kool-Aid has to offer.
this may be important to some of my followers *and certainly not just getting reblogged because of my costuming and my boyfriends desire for leather armor*
the flavor only packets where you are supposed add sugar are the best.
they will dye any natural fiber: leather, wool, cotton, hair, flax, jute, silk and so forth.
heat the dye water so it is more potent.
let dry then rinse excess out in cold water.
there’s a whole system to this.
If you like my art and my little critters, I have good news!
I launched my Patreon!! All Patrons $3 and up get my shop items for free, a playable D&D 5e character kit each month, and more! Top $20+ Patrons get an exclusive printable, an exclusive coloring sheet, and voting power on all polls!
it fucking sucks how you can do all the therapy and self healing in the world and you still have to wake up living under a capitalist death cult that's killed community and crushes your soul
"poor people are happier with less" and "money won't buy happiness" is literally classist propaganda. stop buying into it and start making molotov cocktails
amandla
izzy806
origamiaround
pixelskylines
germansingergirl
andulkaphoto
yousharknotpass
