I Win, You Win, We Win – Bi-Directional Benefit
Working for Lijit, I spend a lot of time thinking about the collection and aggregation of data. The presentation of that data, the ability to sift through all that data, and the utility of that data.
Funny thing is that I am not a programmer or developer. Mostly, I spend my day thinking about how Lijit the product, can interact with other products to mutually improve both products.
Here is an example:
Tumblr. Awesome product. I have a tumblog at micahbaldwin.com, and a follow 30 or so other tumblogs. The minimalist design, short form post style and ease of use makes its a viable communication platform and will open up “blogging” to folks that dont want to build and maintain a full blog.
Because of the user experience, the content on people’s tumblogs grows quickly, sometimes I may post 4-5 times a day, I see others post at a much more rapid pace. Unless I stay on top of the data, there are often many good posts that I miss.
What’s missing? Some sort of search functionality. Not just the ability to search through posts, but to help me discover content from other tumblogs that would interest me, and I could grow my follow list. Reblogging (the ability to re-post someone else’s post) certainly allows the best of the best to rise to the top, but its very superficial and manual.
Enter Lijit. We offer much of that functionality, and the ability to better integrate in the Tumblr platform would certainly improve the results we provide.
Beyond interconnected search, the added benefit is that Lijit can use following and reblogging to help “rank” posts and people based on trust, which could aid in content discovery and relationship recommendations.
It is pretty clear that a relationship between Lijit and Tumblr would be mutual beneficial and provide additional functionality that would not take away from the core value of either product, but would be embraced and useful to users of either product.
Which takes us to Twitter.
After all, if Tumblr and Lijit would make a good match, wouldnt Twitter as well? It shares much of the simple user interface and ease of use of Tumblr. People use it…a…lot.
And while there are services that exist search through tweets and users, there is nothing like the interconnected search capability of Lijit, where I can search through my tweets and the tweets of my network simultaneously, as well as all the content in my and my networks combined social graph.
But tweets are different than Tumblr and blog posts. They are ephemeral, usually in context, and more and more part of a longer public conversation. Rarely, does a tweet stand on its own.
While there is intersections that Lijit and Twitter can have around the collecting, indexing and presentation of data, its certainly not as robust as other relationships.
Would I do a deal with Twitter? Absolutely. There is often ways to determine benefit to both parties without needing to implement a complete solution.
Which leads to social aggregation products. I have spoken to many of them about the value to Lijit to collect more of the user’s social graph, and the need for an interconnected search functionality to exist within their application. The biggest difficulty facing social aggregation products is the sheer amount of collected data and the rate at which that data changes.
At the end of the day, the best business development deals are the ones where both products are improved by the relationship, and therefore both companies are motivated to see the relationship grow and flourish.
SIDE THOUGHT:
After becoming quite the consumer of Tumblr, Twitter and several social aggregation products, I have also come to another belief: Tweets should stay in TwitterLand.
Because context is so important to understanding the follow of Twitter, it works best as SMS, IM in a Twitter client, or in a browser window. When mixed with Tumblr or a social aggregation product, Twitter becomes noise.
Popularity: 8% [?]
Hi Micah,
Dave Guarnieri told me to get in touch with you regarding a business plan that I am trying to write for a Web site that I’ve started, The Natural Life. The site started as a blog, though one with multiple contributors, but I’m trying to incorporate more user driven content aspects, such as an outdoor recreation guide, a volunteer database, google mapping software and news/commentary about the environment and outdoor recreation. The business plan is part of a graduate student competition that I’m entering here in Nevada, but also just for me to do in order to spin this project forward once I graduate in May. I was wondering if you have any ROI data on user-generated content sites and any and all suggestions you might have for increasing both traffic and UGC on my site.
This is off-topic from your post above. But anyways I was reading your tumble-log, I came across the piece where you spoke about Litjit. I have tried Litjit. It does a good job but for searching tumble-logs the fastest and best way to find things (without even indexing your pages is using the Tumblr API-powered search. Its pretty easy to set up and the results are instant. You can find a tutorial to install it here:http://www.ziked.com/post/5326924.
Also you should consider adding commenting to your tumble-log – makes it a lot easier to interact with other users.
@allan sure, drop me a line at micah at currentwisdom dot com. Love to hear more.
@Mirza I agree (and not just because I work at Lijit). The search box you outline on your tumblog is very cool, with the real time results, but it seems to do only keyword based searches. Plus, what I like about lijit is that your content could show up in my search results mixed with my social content, which is even more interesting (if I say so myself…)
As for comments, I used to use Intense Debate on my blog, and I was going to add comments to my MicahBaldwin.com tumblog, but I keep thinking that Tumblr is good as a minimalist site, versus a full featured blog. Do you agree?
To be completely honest, I am bored by the fact that everyone wants to keep Tumblr minimalistic. When i first started using Tumblr, I expected to use it just for sharing links. But proved to be much easier to use than all the other blog platforms I have use. Right now, I use Tumblr as a tumble-log cum blog. I mean it does everything for me that Blogger or wordpress (which makes everything feel too complicated for me) does (except tags,sitemaps,multiple posts and better google indexing).I do however agree that its not for professional blogging. Commenting helps interaction with other users so much easier. If you want to keep your tumble-log neat, just don’t show the comment link on the from page. If you are however planning on adding comments to tumblr, I would recommend Disqus (since they have an easy installation method for tumblr). On a side note, what exactly was Current Wisdom (right now it’s a blog) ?
@Allan: as a web designer, I recommend getting rid of the automated music on The Natural Life.
@mirza Current Wisdom was a search marketing agency I owned for 8 years, and sold last year.
I guess at the end of the day, it depends on what kinda of blog platform you want, and what you want it to do. I look at it like this:
- Twitter: quick random thoughts
- Tumblr: short form blogging
- WordPress: long form blogging
I had comments on my tumblr for awhile, but then decided to take them off. I might put them back on. I used Intense Debate, which worked pretty well.
Add Lijit to your tumblog and tell me what you think.
Wonderful article,thanks for putting this together! “This is obviously one great post. Thanks for the valuable information and insights you have so provided here. Keep it up!”
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