
Why Tumblr is kicking Posterous's ass - pegobry
http://pegontech.wordpress.com/2010/01/19/why-tumblr-posterous-ass/
======
pclark
I think this is actually an unfair comparison. For one thing Tumblr really
works the social network aspect of the site (reblogging, hearting articles,
following users) whereas posterous is more an "island" blog.

Which is fine, as they both solve different problems.

I also think Tumblr is a technically superior product as well as a superior
designed product (right now): for example I can embed javascript into my
Tumblr, posterous doesn't allow that. Tumblr has fantastic iPhone and mobile
applications, and generally feels, well, more mature.

You mention Posterous have top tier investors and developers, Tumblr does too.
Tumblr has spark capital and union square ventures as their investors. Marco
Arment, the technical lead at Tumblr is a perfect balance of technical chops,
getting stuff done and doing it right.

~~~
pegobry
You're right that Tumblr's social aspects are more developed than Posterous's
and that this has been a huge driver of their growth but to me that's not so
much solving two different problems as Tumblr being more smartly designed --
realizing that blogging, even minimalist blogging, is inherently social.

As for Tumblr's top tier investors -- sure, that's true. I was trying to
emphasize that Posterous, on paper, has everything it takes to win.

~~~
ashley
I chose Tumblr over Posterous because of the elegant templates and the
art/music tastes, so I agree here. If Posterous compares itself to Gmail for
blogging, then Tumblr is like a public Evernote for scrapbooking. I'm not
using it to promote my own ideas or build my professional "brand". Posterous
seems as though it's trying to cater both to the computer illiterate and the
time-crunched techie/professional who lives and dies by email to organize life
a la GTD. For example, Tumblr has a quotations format separate from the text
post option, more useful to me than the Google analytics tool that Posterous
offers.

The downside is that Tumblr does have a greater share of Livejournal/teen
angst, but I've carved out my niche of grad students, graphic designers, and
classical music aficionados who upload great performances. The fact that TED
Chris and John Maeda (President of RISD) use Posterous is tempting, but also
makes it more businesslike.

I have yet to understand why I would want to email posts other than videos, as
it's not particularly onerous to use bookmarklets. And Posting within Tumblr
means my tags autocomplete, whereas Posterous has you write tags in your email
subject line. Posting videos to Posterous is easier though, as Tumblr requires
videos first to be hosted on Vimeo. Posterous might have another advantage as
it is more useful to coordinate updates to a multitude of other sites,
including Tumblr. But I screen different content on Facebook, Twitter,
Wordpress, and Tumblr, so I actually don't want the same things posting on all
my sites.

------
pg
This reminds me of the article posted here recently about the locations of
ancient Woolworth's stores. If you'd written an article 3 months ago that led
off with the compete.com graph of the two sites' traffic, you could have
written about how Posterous was kicking Tumblr's ass, and used that to support
an equally plausible sounding thesis about how this was because they were
based in Silicon Valley.

This article is like an inverted pyramid, balanced on a couple months' trend
in compete.com stats. Not actual traffic stats even, but compete.com estimates
of traffic, which as anyone who runs a site knows, can be way off.

~~~
3pt14159
From Compete - yearly change:

tumblr: +184.36%

posterous: +297.36%

So, uh, even with the last 3 months in posterous is still growing faster than
tumblr. If it were a stock its valuation would have increased more than
tumblr. Also, wouldn't there definitely be less hits to posterous based on the
fact that you _EMAIL_ posts in rather than sign in? That being said, the
tumblr landing experience is probably one of the reasons I blog with them and
not posterous.

~~~
pegobry
Great points. I'll incorporate them into the post.

It's growing faster from a smaller base, though. I find more relevant that
Tumblr is still much, much bigger. And I think it will stay that way.

~~~
BigDamnDeal
One way to normalize this is to ask: How quickly was Tumblr growing when it
was as small as Posterous is now? Then you're comparing apples to apples.

------
inmygarage
I have been waiting for someone to write a post like this. Not because I think
it's important to discuss one startup versus the other necessarily - they have
very different markets in my mind - but because an exploration of the
developing NYC aesthetic is worth examining.

I actually think it has a lot to do with early users. In the Bay Area, it's
easy to find a large group of beta testers and early users who "get"
technology in a profound way that (sadly) no where else in the country does.
This contributes to the SV echo chamber and yields a certain type of feedback
that in turn creates very distinctly "west coast" products. In New York, the
number of truly tech-savvy social web types is much smaller and the majority
come from media and advertising - ie, people who care first about design, and
second about everything else.

While I'm sure the debate could rage all day about _real_ growth and traffic
stats, that's not what I took away from this article at all.

~~~
alabut
Yes! That's the point I gravitated towards as well, there really is a similar
playful yet polished vibe from several New York startups like Vimeo, Boxee and
Tumblr, off the top of my head.

As for the main point of the article - couldn't disagree more, from my
personal use case. I'm a Bay Are startup geek but also a designer, so
hopefully my biases cancel each other out. I like Tumblr's look but abandoned
it after a few days because I didn't want to get sucked into their community
features. I'm not a big fan of design subcultures like deviant art or
livejournal, really the only online community I've been attracted to and stuck
around for is HN. And it's a pet peeve of mine when sites or apps have only
good import tools and not export, it's like they want to pretend the identity
you've built up around the rest of the web doesn't exist. I'd rather see
better integration with my _existing_ networks elsewhere - that's where
posterous' autoposting feature really impressed me. After starting up a
posterous account as part of the ycombinator application process a few months
ago, I gave it a try earlier this month for personal blogging and it's
completely reinvigorated my site.

And I really disagree with his contention that posterous is only for geeks -
the main feature set is pretty newbie-oriented. I can have my mom set up a
blog in seconds via something she already understands - email - and have it
autopost to her flickr and facebook accounts, which saves her the hassle of
having to refer to her notebook on my instructions on how to upload and manage
those services.

------
patio11
Personally I don't really care for the Company A versus Company B frame, or
the Region A versus Region B frame. However, I was _quite_ interested in the
discussion of how a feature which sounds great to an engineer can have
negative consequences for your conversion rates versus something which is
quicker to implement/less sophisticated/flies-in-face-of-received-
wisdom/whatever.

Other examples: "breaking navigation" during conversion funnels, long copy, 10
Ways To Write A Title Cosmo Editors Don't Want You To Know About, etc etc.

~~~
krakensden
He's not really doing analysis though- he's more trolling the west coast and
posturing.

~~~
patio11
That was my impression at first glance, but look at his description of the
steps involved in signing up with a three element form versus signing up via
email, and ignore the sarcasm for a second. His conclusion is _correct_ and
would not have occurred to me absent reading the article.

~~~
pegobry
Thanks.

Am I trolling? I don't think so, insofar as I use a provocative example to
illustrate trends that I do think are important: the coming of age of New York
as a startup hub and as a "school" for building consumer startups, and the
growing importance of design vs. "hard" technology in building a successful
consumer web app.

~~~
patio11
_Am I trolling? I don't think so..._

In order to avoid being mistaken for trolling in the future, you might
consider:

\+ Cutting down on the curses, particular in titles.

\+ Avoid personalizing any conflict. Your favorite sports team or the hated
cross-town rival "eats dust", case studies on the other hand calmly discuss
math.

\+ Ratchet the sarcasm down seven notches. Eight if you're talking to people
who know the people you're being sarcastic about.

\+ Avoid interjections like "(ugh)" unless they are being used in a self-
deprecating fashion.

Believe it or not, you can take this advice and still sound passionate,
intelligent, engaging, and perhaps even hip, if you're into that sort of
thing.

~~~
pegobry
Thanks for the kind advice. For me, blogging is a conversational medium, I try
to write blog posts the way I would speak, and so it's pretty unfiltered. Also
I try to be engaging. And insofar as my opinion/analysis has any value, I
think it's better for those concerned that it be unvarnished. I don't believe
most things should be sugarcoated, and I don't think the kind of people who do
startups do either.

~~~
brlewis
His advice might help the way you speak too. Courtesy is not sugarcoating. He
noticed some good engineering in your writing, but if you want to reach people
maybe your words need better design.

~~~
pegobry
That was hilarious. I'll keep it in mind.

~~~
jasonoliver
you use the word insofar a lot.

------
karzeem
There seems to be a contradiction in his argument. He talks a lot about the
signup pages, focusing on what he guesses is Tumblr's much higher conversion
rate and the reasons for why that conversion rate is high. Shortly thereafter,
he lays into Posterous for being too metrics-driven. How could a company
that's too metrics-driven let themselves get crushed (again, according to the
author's guess) on something as important as signup page conversions?

The whole piece has this arbitrary anti-Silicon Valley animus that I don't
really get and which doesn't seem to serve any purpose.

It's useful to talk about conversion rates, the importance of good UI/UX, and
what Tumblr and Posterous do or don't do well, but the broader, hand-waving
indictment of Silicon Valley doesn't add anything.

(Also, the author doesn't directly do this, but articles like this can falsely
suggest that the two companies at hand are playing a zero-sum game.)

~~~
pegobry
The signup pages are an example of a broader mindset which is different at
Tumblr and at Posterous and which in turn, to me, exemplifies broader trends
for startups. That's what I think is interesting.

I'm not saying startups should not be metrics-driven. Design and engineering
are both driven by metrics. But they're different mindsets. And in this case,
one is clearly winning.

You're also right that the zero-sum fallacy is wrong. However, those two
companies _are_ competitors in the market and one, at least on publicly
available data, is winning hands down.

~~~
jasonoliver
you also seem to suggest that they are directly competing with each other. i
use both tumblr and posterous, but i would venture a guess that many many
posterous users would never ever consider using tumblr, while many tumblr
users would never ever consider any form of transportation other than the
fixed gear bike or any type of pants other than the skinny jeans.

------
mnemonicsloth
Looking at the Tumblr landing page on a touchscreen PC makes me feel like
someone is trying to tell me "MASH THE BUTTON WITH YOUR PALM TO MAKE IT GO."

It's probably just because I'm not who Tumblr is for, of course. But it's
still interesting to ask: can you overdo design simplicity?

~~~
jacobbijani
How else are you supposed to use a touchscreen PC?

~~~
BigDamnDeal
Shh, Jacob, get out of here, we're talking about your stuff!

------
buster
Just thought i should mention soup.io (i am not affiliated with them) which i
found to be wonderful in design and functionality. It aggregates my flickr,
last.fm, picasa updates into one blog and posts new blog entries automatically
on facebook. While mobile i can just send new images/texts/links to a cryptic
mail address which gets posted. Love it!

------
cnunciato
Until I realized, just now, that the OP also wrote the article, I felt folks
were treating him a bit unfairly. Now, not so much.

Pegobry, your point is well taken; I'm an engineer myself, and I agree -- as
Web frameworks mature, and engineering/development patterns level off, design
becomes the differentiating factor. And yes, provided your numbers are
correct, Tumblr currently appears to be "winning." Not sure whether the latter
really matters, or whether it even supports the former at all, but it's a
concept with which I happen to agree.

Your mistake was to post the article here, primarily since you wrote it
yourself. Most folks here are engineers who follow YC startups. You might as
well have posted a link titled, "Why Microsoft Is Kicking Apple's Ass" in an
Apple forum.

~~~
alexro
And the downvotes the OP is getting clearly indicate that

------
toothcomb
First impressions. I get what posterous can do from the get go (faq). I don't
have a clue what tumblr can do for me. I scrolled through a load of self
flagellation on the about page, and it still didn't tell me. Both have stupid
names.

After working at a myriad of places doing web work, people tend to skimp on
the important little pieces that make a site usable. A lot of the time it's
style over substance.

I'd have thought tumblr could improve by having the login on the homepage. And
I'd prefer to also find a simple paragraph about what it can do.

------
jcapote
Don't forget to take into account the year headstart tumblr has had.

~~~
mmastrac
Exactly. Isn't Tumblr at least two years older? That graph only shows a few
months of 2009.

~~~
pegobry
Actually, it shows the past 12 months.

------
kevintwohy
To be honest I found this post pretty annoyingly reductive.

The essential thesis seems to be: 'I personally speculate that the design of
Tumblr's signup page is better, ERGO Tumblr is kicking Posterous' ass.'

There are a lot of words in there, but none of them actually help link premise
-> conclusion.

------
alexro
I agree with your take on mindset. But eyeballs isn't what makes the company
successful in the end, the revenue does. And who has/will have more revenue is
an open question for now. Personally I'd put on Posterous.

~~~
pegobry
You're right -- obviously this isn't a post mortem or anything. The trends
could reverse, and Posterous could become wildly profitable with less users
while Tumblr has plenty of traffic but no money.

Although it seems pretty obvious that both are headed for a combination of
advertising/freemium model, and the revenue that comes from that seems pretty
correlated to userbase size.

------
mnml
I use posterous because I like it. Tumblr is slower and isn't as power full
when it comes to import/export. Javascript support or pre_made modules would
be a plus for posterous as long as they keep is simple as its now.

------
edw519
A blog entry comparing Tumblr with Posterous hosted on Wordpress. Hmmm.

What OP _does_ screams much louder than what he _says_.

~~~
gabrielroth
Where's the contradiction? He doesn't say 'Tumblr is the best choice for my
needs.'

------
jamiequint
"You can’t just engineer anymore. You have to design" is bullshit. Design is a
tool, you still have to measure its results, pretty is not equal to better.

You can really see this if you look at the history of direct mail, some of the
best performing mailers ever were pretty ugly. (source:
[http://www.amazon.com/Million-Dollar-Mailings-Dension-
Hatch/...](http://www.amazon.com/Million-Dollar-Mailings-Dension-
Hatch/dp/1566251621))

~~~
BigDamnDeal
If you read past the first paragraph, he explains how the design goes far
beyond "pretty". He explicitly says that "pretty" is not the point.

