Support principles

Pro tip: Deactivating the accounts of your users (for no good reason) instead of just canceling and deleting as they request doesn’t help business.

SendGrid support chat:
Me: I’d like to have my account nixed, please :) I couldn’t find a delete/cancel link anywhere
Kyle Kermgard: any particular reason you dont want to use our service anymore?
Kyle Kermgard: also is the account name [redacted]?
Me: Yes, it is
Me: we just never used it. We were planning to offer emailing newsletters from our platform, but it turns out we’re better suited to just plug into the mail servers our customers already have
Kyle Kermgard: ok, your account is a free account
Kyle Kermgard: you just want it deactivated?
Me: Well, we’re never going to use it, so I’d prefer if it’s deleted…
Kyle Kermgard: ok
Kyle Kermgard: we dotn delete accounts but i can deactivate
Me: like facebook, huh…
Me: why don’t you delete accounts?
Kyle Kermgard: just isnt something we do
Me: Hm
Me: Well in that case, I’d like to go into my profile and remove all address information and point my account to a dummy email address
Kyle Kermgard: ok
Me: Since that will be more effective
Me: k, you officially have a dummy account on your hands
Me: Thanks

Non sequiturs for the sake of page views

“The Ohio Department of Agriculture has mounted a more unusual response to the crisis: it petitioned the EPA for an exemption to allow in-home use of propoxur, a pesticide and neurotoxin banned in the 1990s out of concern for its effects on children. (See the top 10 weird insect mating rituals.)”

Taken from this.

I’ll have what they’re having

If you’re going to enter a Starbucks and purchase a Starbucks beverage, you’ve given up your right to be a snooty “I refuse to say Grande” kind of person.

It’s like going into McDonalds and saying “I will have your hamburger that weighs 0.25 pounds, please.”

Reblogs vs. Retweets

A very old post of mine has been reblogged fifty times in the past week alone and it hasn’t netted me a single additional follower (currently holding steady at 758).

Not so on Twitter.

If I were retweeted fifty times in a week, my follower count would grow like a weed.

Not that I’m equating follow count to value and self-satisfaction, it’s just a behavior discrepancy I noticed considering that they’re very similar actions.

Some reports are coming out that Android devices are outselling iPhones, which spells doom for Apple. I think it’s an unfair assessment. Besides the fact that Verizon, the primary provider of Android devices, is much larger than AT&T, there are also dozens of Android phones available on several other carriers.

It’d only be fair to compare all iOS devices (iPod touch, iPad, etc.), not just iPhones, to devices running Android.

When we do that, Apple clearly remains the dominant force. Including iPad and iPod touch segments in the comparison doubles the amount of iOS devices on the market.

Still, it’s pretty amazing that a single Apple device is ahead of all Android phones combined.

Tumblr’s Business Model

Some thoughts on the New York Times article being published in tomorrow’s edition:

Tumblr just hired a “media evangelist” named Mark Coatney — an editor turned bus dev guy who’s responsible for monetizing future media partnerships. He used to work at Newsweek, which was the first major publication to utilize Tumblr as a publishing medium. Why did Newsweek adopt when nobody else would? According to Mark, “no one at Newsweek really knew what I was doing.”

Okay, so for other media conglomerates to adopt Tumblr, they just need to not know it’s happening. Check.

Also, “…do [media organizations] have the time and resources to work yet another Web outlet into their daily routine?”

Good question.

“Mr. Coatney estimated that posting links and notes to the Newsweek Twitter feed and Facebook page sent roughly 200,000 to 300,000 readers to Newsweek’s Web site each day. By comparison, Tumblr sent closer to 1,000.”

I think the better question is, “do people have the time and resources to work yet another Web outlet into their daily routine?” The answer is already apparent; they don’t.

Since Newsweek came on board, a few other big companies have signed up. Surely that’s good business news for Tumblr, right? “…many of those outlets have done little more than set up a placeholder page.”

Oh.

David Karp, the founder of Tumblr, shed some light on the company’s priorities when he said, “People are creating identities and personalities that Facebook and Twitter are not designed to allow you to do.” This sounds like the Tumblr of 2008 — when it was focused entirely on user generation. I’m not sure how that philosophy applies to partnering with more media companies.

“Mr. Coatney acknowledged that this might not be an easy sell, particularly when the payoff was not immediately obvious.” So your latest hire is already unsure of how viable this model is. Not a good sign. By the way, what is the payoff? The article doesn’t really say.

All in all, it sounds like there’s no solid strategy in place at Tumblr right now. They’re trying to monetize media partnerships — maybe. They aren’t sure. But hey, it’s also a great place to be creative as a person! At this point, the company’s been around for a while. It just raised some capital. It needs to figure out what the end game is.

I would like to note that I think Tumblr is an incredible platform for publishing. The best, even. It’s unbelievably versatile for many facets of content. In an ideal world, Facebook and Twitter would not exist and we’d be communicating productively here. But alas, that is not the case, ergo my points above.