Should Tumblr care?
I try to avoid getting sucked into these hand-wringing, backseat driving posts on Hacker News. But this exhibits so many typical misperceptions that I can’t help myself.
First, Silicon Valley needs to stop thinking Tumblr is competing with Posterous and Wordpress. They’re missing the point and assuming ‘blogging’ is the goal. At this point, I don’t think Tumblr minds if people drift into Wordpress, especially users who would really prefer a classic one-directional blog.
Second, blindly worshipping early adopters is madness, especially when you’re rapidly growing. Early adopters are great to build with but they hardly represent the mass audience a company usually builds it’s business on. Apple bent to the will of the fanboys until Steve Jobs returned, and it almost killed them. Yahoo! was nearly driven into the ground because they vetted every decision by asking what the “Yahoo’s” would think. If you focus on the early adoptor audience forever you’ll never create a product that resonates with the masses. I can’t wait till Quora hits this point: the fireworks at Hacker News will be epic.
