#VT – Folks are sharing yesterday’s NYTimes’ piece about Tumblr… “reminds me of Front Porch Forum.” Well… we’re flattered!
Of course, Tumblr and FPF operate at different scales and offer different products. Tumblr has been used to create 60 million blogs globally. We host 100 neighborhood/small town FPFs in Vermont… and about 40,000 households participate (out of our 110,000-household coverage area).
Some bits from the New York Times Magazine article by Rob Walker…
The design of Tumblr, the blogging tool and social network, is guided by feeling. In particular, the feelings of David Karp, the company’s 26-year-old founder, whose instincts tend to run counter to current Web conventions. Tumblr does not display “follower” counts, for example, or other numerical markers of popularity that are viewed as crucial social-media features, because Karp finds them “really gross.” The culture of public friend-and-follow reciprocity that theoretically expands a social networking service can, in his view, “really poison a whole community.”
Possibly such a view of Internet culture could be arrived at by way of deliberate study of online group behavior. But that’s not how Tumblr was made. “David built it for himself,” John Maloney, until recently the company’s president, told me…
The trick is making page views equal money. “Pretty much every large tech company today,” Karp said, is essentially “metrics driven.” Google, Twitter, Facebook: they’re obsessed with “optimizing” services, design, functionality and aesthetics through constant testing and tweaking. That ability to optimize and (not incidentally) monetize user experiences by reacting to microlevel data is the essence of Web-business magic, as it is generally understood.
Karp chose not to operate that way. Rather than monetizing clicks, he wants advertisers to view Tumblr as a place to promote particularly creative campaigns to an audience whose attention is worth paying for…
The features Tumblr eliminates are as important to the way it feels as those it adopts. Bijan Sabet of Spark Capital, an early Tumblr investor who sits on its board, says that it is “normal behavior” for a founder to be excited about adding new bells and whistles, but Karp seems excited about doing the opposite: “He’ll tell us, “˜Hey, got a new version coming up and I took four features out!’ “…
Karp’s thinking about the comments section, which is generally assumed to be a core blog feature, helps illustrate his broader ideas about how design shapes behavior online. Typically, a YouTube video or blog post or article on a newspaper’s site is the dominant object, with comments strewed below it, buried like so much garbage. Thus many commenters feel they must scream to be noticed, and do so in all caps, profanely and with maximum hyperbole. This, Karp argues, brings out the worst in people, so Tumblr’s design does not include a comments section.
How, then, to encourage feedback while discouraging drive-by hecklers who make you never want to post again? First, Karp notes, you can comment on someone else’s post, by reblogging it and adding your reaction. But that reaction appears on your Tumblr, not the one you’re commenting on. “So if you’re going to be a jerk, you’re looking like a jerk in your own space, and my space is still pristine,” Karp explains. This makes for a thoughtful network and encourages expression and, ultimately, creativity. “That’s how you can design to make a community more positive.”
#VT – Stephanie posted this to her Cambridge neighbors via Front Porch Forum a couple days ago…
So, I doubt if we are the ONLY household having issues with using fuel oil. It has gotten to be outrageously expensive to heat with… What are other/cheaper options? Do you know if Jeffersonville has Natural gas? Is switching to propane any better? Just wondered what other old homes are using these days to cut heating cost. Thank goodness for our fireplace insert! Using 100 gallons every week and a half is killing us. Thanks for ANY info!
And now today she adds…
Wow! Thank you to everyone with different opinions for heating alternatives! I was bombarded with so many emails I couldn’t keep up. I see many of you have pellet stoves and rave about them… that is wonderful. I am going to heed the advice to check the age and function of our current furnace, and definitely find out about the home energy audit. It has been a long time since new insulation has been done also… so I suppose were in for a costly chore, but worth it in the long run. Thanks again everyone you were very helpful!
Ask a question, get an answer… that’s the way it is with FPF. Or, in Stephanie’s case, get LOTS of answers. And get to know some neighbors a bit better along the way. The Cambridge FPF covers all 1,500 households in that town and has 840 members. And it’s finally getting cold this winter!
#VT – Front Porch Forum recently launched an online community calendar available in two dozen of the Vermont towns where we already provide our core service. In addition to visiting the calendar on FPF’s website, folks can also clip the widget and place the FPF community calendar on their own website or blog. Details here.
We’re grateful to our partner on this new feature, e-Vermont.
Ghost of Midnight is an online journal about fostering community within neighborhoods, with a special focus on Front Porch Forum (FPF). My wife, Valerie, and I founded FPF in 2006... read more