2009-08-18
Tumblr Staff: Introducing Tag Channels
Whenever I have a tag field, I use it, and I try to be consistent. So Tumblr finally having some sort of global support for tagging is nice. Because I was away today, I first noticed it when looking at other people’s posts on my dashboard (although this example is one of my own):
My first thought was “why the fuck are they using a hash in front of the tag? This isn’t bloody Twitter; Tumblr have more sense than to force metadata into the body of a message (well, except for all the post types that don’t have titles, but that’s another matter)”.
My second thought was to try clicking on the links, and it turns out that despite the post (which I eventually got to after wading through some Facebook nonsense and promotional rubbish) claiming that tags are normalised, they’re not. Or maybe they are, but not all tags. In any case, the ‘victoria line” tag page is coming up empty.
Still, one hurrah for highlighting tags, a half hurrah for a global tag search (that sort of works), and a big fat raspberry for pointlessly aping Twitter’s use of # to indicate a tag when there’s no bloody need to.
2009-06-30
post/133150658
2009-06-23
Visible Likes
Yesterday Tumblr announced that it’s now possible to share your likes with people. Unfortunately, every feature brings with it a crop of new feature requests. For example, why don’t liked by pages have RSS feeds? Will it be possible to follow someone’s likes in your dashboard? Meanwhile, it makes the social aspects of Tumblr even more twisty.
Since the site’s creators seem down on comments (to the extent of adding a rather undiscoverable answers feature instead), the solution for feedback has been to reblog posts. That can also a way to show public approval. Likes used to be private, but that’s now theme-dependent; custom themes can now get at a post’s notes (like the one I use does).
Maybe the combination of that, and perhaps a move to visible likes, will mean that people have to find a different way to secretly approve of shameless pictures of pretty girls.
2009-06-02
New bookmarklet!
Thanks, Tumblr, for the new bookmarklet, now with an “Advanced” tab that lets you set a custom post URL. The fact you couldn’t before always bugged me, but it’s all better now. Hurrah!
[Edit] I’m so on the ball I posted about this (just) before staff did. They don’t even mention the custom post URL stuff, but that’s the best bit!
2009-05-04
Random Thoughts on Twitter
1. I joined Twitter well over two years ago, when it first swept the alpha geeks. Back then, it was yet another unknown quantity; a service we all signed up for but which might not prove sticky, or which could just go bust. Along with a bunch of the people who joined around that time, I plumped for privacy over publicity.
2. My previous employers were the sort of place where “social media” meant “Facebook”, whereas to me it means an entire ecosystem of sites, with each typically specialising in a particular “social object”. I didn’t know of anyone else seriously on Twitter, and if there were, they didn’t try to follow me and I didn’t follow them. This meant I could bitch about work or, just as commonly, let off steam at my own inability to concentrate, or solve a problem.
3. When I moved companies in the middle of last year, it was only a couple of months before I was following, and followed by, all of the co-workers who had a Twitter account. In effect, whilst still nominally “private”, my account had become part of a public sphere, the workplace.
4. In the year and a half between my joining Twitter and leaving my previous employer, I never suggested that should set up a Twitter account. Why would I? It was a place for me to grumble to my friends, not a place for broadcast or companies. Ironically, it turns out that someone used their name for an account earlier this year, not with the best of intentions. That’s gone now, but despite setting up a social media division, they don’t seem to have an account of their own.
5. My current place of work has both a corporate account, and an ‘overheard in the office’ account (which is used even less, but ah well). My co-workers are evenly split between being private and public, with one not on Twitter at all, and another having both public and private personas. (Is it interesting to note that the women tend to privacy?)
6. I wonder why I was so keen to suggest an account for my current employers when it didn’t even occur to me to recommend it for my previous ones. After all, I’d done so within a month of joining. (In contrast, it was only a couple of months ago that I decided to make sure I controlled the account for my real name, as well as my nick.)
2008-08-06
Housekeeping
I’ve changed the domain of this… well, whatever it is to notes.husk.org. Unfortunately for now tumblr.husk.org is hosed, but when it comes back it should point here.
Er. Right. Sorry about that and normal service should be resumed soon. I’m sure you can live without the random images for a few hours anyway.
