Ever since I switched to Tumblr, I’ve been using the Disqus commenting service. Actually I had it on my old typepad blog as well.
My favorite things about Disqus are threaded comments and being able to respond by email
Today, they released an update where you can leave video comments.
Love to hear see you and hear what you think about it. Give it a try!
Stop Breaking Down - The Rolling Stones
I’m making a new playlist this morning. This is the first song i put on the list. Enjoy.
I’m going to the Radiohead concert on August 13th at the Tweeter Center outside of Boston. I ended up with 4 extra tickets. They are lawn seats. I bought them for $30/each but happy to sell them for 50% off to any other Radiohead fans that want to go to this show.
First come, first served. Pls comment on this blog only if you want all 4.
Thanks.
A few weeks ago a bunch of us were talking about web services and social communities.
My friend John Borthwick was there (we are co-investors in Tumblr and Covestor). John said something at the meeting that has stuck with me ever since. John said one of the important lessons they learned at Fotolog was focusing on the core users to get big. By successfully contracting and getting tighter around that group the product & user experience will become better and start to snowball.
I’m seeing this “focus on the small” everywhere. Saul Hansell’s post in the NYT today offers this as the key reason why Yelp is doing so well:
What Yelp did differently than these others, as Jeremy Stoppelman, the site’s co-founder and chief executive describes it, was to spend most of its energy attracting a small group of fanatic reviewers. It didn’t try to pay for reviews, as some sites have. It didn’t subordinate the users’ contributions to professional reviews, as on Citysearch, or to directory information, as on yellow-pages sites.
Instead, it structured the site to motivate people through the praise and attention that their reviews receive from others. “Yelp is about the reviewing experience,” Mr. Stoppelman said. “It is like a blog with a little bit of structure.
I love this notion and it makes sense. At the end of the day, when (if) you are lucky enough to find/delight your core group of passionate users - you need to keep focusing on that group and remember what you do better than anyone else. And adding more value to that community will actually widen your appeal ultimately.
It’s very tempting to add a bazillion features and expand to vertically integrate all sorts of bells & whistles.
But to go big it’s sometimes critical to focus on the small.
Expecting to Fly - Emily Haines
This is one soulful cover. Original by Neil Young. Emily Haines’s voice is something else on this one.
These days more and more companies have blogs.
There are a lot of good ones out there. They are a great way to tell users & customers what you are thinking about, discuss new product ideas, explain mistakes, celebrate highlights and showcase things users are doing with your product. Best of all, you just feel closer to the company.
Just a few of my favorite company blogs right now:
I’ve always been a fan of Flickr’s blog.
Tumblr has a staff tumblelog up and it’s off to a great start. They are highlighting what Tumblr users are doing and share new Tumblr features and capabilities. And they are very transparent when things don’t happen as planned.
Twitter’s blog is excellent too. Take Ev’s post today about “@replies”. It’s a thorough, honest & thoughtful piece on how to use it, why it’s confusing to some people and great to know that they want to make it even easier to use.
The Next New Networks blog is alive & fun. You can tell that they are proud of their work and it shows.
I wish Apple had a company blog.
What other company blogs do you like?
The Kooks - Young Folks
Cover of Peter, Bjorn, and John.
Whenever I hear this song, it gets stuck in my head. Here’s to hoping it gets stuck in yours today!
I’ve been at an offsite all day today so I haven’t had a chance to post my daily song. But we just finished up and I’m catching up on emails and listening to tunes from my friends on Tumblr and was happy Daryn posted The Kooks.
Fantastic. Thanks Daryn.
Joseph Arthur’s Tumblelog Is Hot With Music, Photos | Listening Post from Wired.com
Tumblr is catching on in a special way with creative artists and their fans. Joseph Arthur was discovered by Peter Gabriel and I’m digging his tumblelog.
It’s beautiful today. We played in the park while waiting for lauren to finish her triathalon.
(first time with flickr video. very simple)