whitneymcn on tumblr

Tumblr and Comments

Whit reblogs to comment, thereby adding another stain to his soul:

I have the same hunch, and wrote it up a little while ago:

As a side note, this is probably also a big part of why the dashboard has remained off limits to the API: whether Tumblr is what it is by design, by accident, or a little bit of both, the folks there aren’t dumb, and I think they recognize that the dashboard is their tool for building and managing community. While I’d love to be able to tweak the Tumblr dashboard myself, when* Tumblr gives me the tools to do so they’re running the risk of diluting the shared experience that makes Tumblr something other than a nice strongly typed blogging tool.

* Yes, I think that’s a “when” rather than an if, though I don’t expect it any time soon.

kylewritescode:

caterpillarcowboy:

[snip]

I have a hunch it’s intentional we can’t access much of the Tumblr Dashboard via API. In a way, it feels to me to be somewhat akin to the Twitter “fire hose”; see segmented pieces for free (e.g. “updates with friends” on Twitter, or piecing together individually tumblelogs you follow using the read API) but you can’t see the big picture — all updates on Twitter (hugely valuable) or any activity around posts on Tumblr (also hugely valueable).

Source: marco