Tumblr says it’s going to “fix” its “core experience” to appeal to new users

trashhalo@beehaw.org to Technology@beehaw.org – 99 points –
Tumblr says it’s going to “fix” its “core experience” to appeal to new users
theverge.com

Tumblr plans to make changes to appeal to new users and improve growth. The post states that Tumblr is currently difficult for new users to use and curates content poorly. Tumblr aims to improve how users discover and sign up, encourage frequent engagement, and boost creators' ability to attract audiences. Specific changes mentioned include updating the confusing reply and reblog system to make conversations clearer and removing duplicate reblogs. Interestingly, the post does not discuss Tumblr's plans to integrate with the ActivityPub protocol. Tumblr has had a turbulent history but has stabilized under its current ownership, though some long-time users may not want a more optimized social feed.


There's a soft spot in my heart for Tumblr. I hope they find their way and become a bigger player.

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All of us in the tumblr community are fuming, the only reason why tumblr has survived all this time is because it is different from other corp social media. If they follow through with their plan to turn tumblr into a twitter/tiktok copy, I will move completely to the fediverse equivalent (Calckey is almost perfect, if just needs to let me follow hashtags)

The main thing I was concerned about is then getting rid of the reverse chronological sorting and they've backtracked on that, so hopefully it won't be completely awful. It did just seem like a weird business memo that the staff were told to put on Tumblr rather than anything user-friendly. Just sounded way too corporate.

I didn't know about calckey! The UI is so pretty!!!

Try using Antennas.

I still haven't figured out how to use Antennas. Other than that, Calckey has been a super great experience.

It's really easy although the instructions start "click on the UFO"...

So:

  • Click on the UFO
  • Click "Manage Antennas"
  • Give it a name and fill with related keywords, which can be hashtags.
  • All done, you now have a custom feed with those hashtags.

It's one of the best things about Calckey, that I've found so far but I am still exploring.