The only thing FanMail! is good for is sending creepy messages as one of my many other blogs. Imagine if Ned got a message from Nerd? Or if I messaged David as Jimmy Kimmel?
What will Tumblr think of next?!
How is Fan Mail™ at all different from the /Ask Box?
why not just bring back tumblarity?
When you have Ronen getting on your case (by all accounts an extremely cordial person), you might have to admit your actions and positions deserve further contemplation…
Is tumblr really holding a user’s personal account hostage to extort him into shutting down his service / competing UI? I cannot believe this.
For those of you who don’t know, “missing e” is a great browser extension for tumblr. It’s a browser add-on for firefox/chrome/safari with an updated user interface that makes doing some things on tumblr easier. (ie, I can edit posts on my blogs from the permalink page, set reblogs to default to my reblog instead of my main/art blog, etc). Some features (such as keeping tags on reblogs) have even been adopted as ‘real’ tumblr features.
Then tumblr called Jeremy Cutler, the creator of “missing e” and asked him to stop distributing it, because they said it was violating the API agreement, hurting their business structure (by allowing users to hide the radar/ads) and ‘page-scraping’ which put a big load on their servers.
So he took missing-e down, and fixed all of those problems. Missing-e no longer hides the radar, no longer scrapes pages, and no longer uses the API at all. In fact, it doesn’t even interact with tumblr— everything it does happens once tumblr is already loaded in your browser, between your browser and you.
But apparently that wasn’t good enough. Because the page-scraping and API reasons weren’t tumblr’s real/only reasons— they didn’t like the UI changes missing-e implemented.
Here’s where things got interesting:
Moments ago, I participated in surprise conference call with Tumblr staff members. They have indicated to me that they continue to take issue with Missing e even with the removal of usage of the Tumblr API. … That’s their prerogative, I’m sure.
Whether or not I have grounds to justly disagree with them on this, the fact remains that under the Tumblr Terms of Service, they are well within their rights to delete my Tumblr blogs as a punitive action should I continue to distribute the extension. They have informed me that this is the course of action they will take should I not acquiesce to their demands.
So, tumblr is threatening to delete his PERSONAL BLOG if he doesn’t meet their (unrelated to his personal blog) demands?
Tumblr staff— I know you and you’re all smart, good people— is there a word for when you can’t get someone to do what you want, so you threaten to damage them personally in an unrelated way?
Are you really holding users’ accounts hostage because you don’t like the things that the things they build are popular with your users?
ex·tor·tion/ikˈstôrSHən/
Noun: The practice of obtaining something through threats.
If you want to bring a cease-and-desist against missing-e, that’s your right. (And I suppose if you had a case, that’s what you would do.) But instead you’re threatening to delete a user’s personal account unless they remove a BROWSER add-on that doesn’t interact with your service and that thousands of your users love, because you don’t like its features?
Lots of people make lots of browser extensions for lots of sites, from youtube to facebook to everything else. The problem here seems to be that Jeremy’s extension is very popular. Wouldn’t the correct course of action be to, I don’t know, hire him?
Now, it’s true— I don’t have your side of the story. But that’s because tumblr hasn’t said anything publicly about this issue.
So please— you’re all intelligent, good people— I would love to hear your side of this.
Because given the positive experiences I’ve had with all of you, what I’m hearing just doesn’t make any sense to me.
Straight-up bullshit. Let’s hold people accountable for this.
Been following this for some time now. Not cool, tumblr.
Last night I got drunk and started tweeting. Simply replacing key lines in Pulp Fiction with the word tumblr. Har Har. Hopefully I won’t have to tweet again for a long time.
Meeting People From The Internet
Is always awkward, because you’ll assume (as I did) that the person you’re meeting would be taller. The Whiskey Monologues, a mid 20’s anonymous blogger who’s true identity is known only to me, and the staff at Tumblr (if they were paying attention) is perhaps slightly taller than I, if only because of the shock of wheat-brown hair.
This guy and I had been talking for what, nine months or more, ever since he started following me. He found my blog by searching tumblr tags for Whiskey, which apparently I mention frequently. I immediately followed back and submitted to his cause. Shortly after we began emailing. Back and forth, until I finally asked his name. He told me where he “Might be able to be found” on facebook, etc. Next came text messaging, and I know this is starting to sound really Bromance-ey, but fuck it—sometimes you just meet someone and know you connect. It’s interesting, too, because I don’t think we would have become friends 5 years ago, I think we were both too different.
Anyways, so I’m on this street corner in Soho, meeting him outside of his hotel, and I see the dude, hand shakes are exchanged and we start to walk. Let me tell you, there’s no better way to meet someone, learn about them than by walking. I’ve always said this; Job interviews should be conducted while walking down the street. You’re side by side, equal, and you can learn so much about a person by the way they walk, and how they talk while walking. You’re focused on avoiding all the people on the sidewalk you just naturally talk. This is how I knew that this was a guy I’d like. We get lunch. It was delicious and interesting. The Whiskey Monologues (TWM further), is a gracious, cultured, and sophisticated person. He’s smart and knows a lot about good food. You’ll have to fight him to pay for a bar-tab, but you’d lose that fight, because he’s fit, and has the look of a man who’s been hardened in the streets, yet educated about the difference between types of olives, and how to properly prepare and consume charcuterie.
We walk a few blocks to a bar. And pass this business that I swear I’ve seen before. See, I’ve got a pretty photographic memory, and sure enough I remembered, “This is where Young Manhattanite lives!”. I don’t know if Krucoff was home or not, (or if it’s even Krucoff or another member of YM who lives there) but part of me wanted to stop and ring the buzzer and say my hellos. Possibly solicit YM to follow my blog ;) Anyway, so we get to the bar, The Whiskey Ward, a place right up our alley and it’s closed. Not open till 5pm.
“Let’s go to Tumblr” I said. TWM agreed. Having been to the tumblr offices before, only viewing it from the outside, too scared to go in I got us on the right train, walked into the building and said to the guy at the desk, “Is this where Tumblr is?” and he says yep, go right on up! (David, you may want to have him screen who comes calling, to keep the riff-raff out) I knock, someone calls out COME INNNN! and in we go.
I’ll say right now, for transparency, I was fucking nervous. I mean, this is the place my blog lives, they’re the dudes! Anyway someone comes over and says, oh you’ve just so happened to visit while we’re holding some rare, top secret meeting. (I got the scoop, but can’t spill the beans). We wait around for a minute, just taking it in, I spied Topherchris, wanted to hug everyone, and after a few ticks John comes over and says, yeah, bro’s sorry important meeting, usually you could hang but… then he stuffs our arms full of tee-shirts and stickers pats us on the head and sends us on our way. Sated.
We make way over to P.J. Clarke’s I’m fucking elated. So much history in that room. Jackie O. Sinatra, Richard Harris, Buddy Holly, Nat King Cole. Unbelievable. Then back to the whiskey joint. Great whiskeys.
Leaving Soho, making our way to Brooklyn, over to Black Rabbit. Dennis wasn’t there, but fine young man, Kent was. Shots of bourbon with a pickle brine back, amazing. Sliders, virginity stories. Ex-girlfriend insanity stories. How To Not Be A Pussy talk.
I’ll mention that by this point I was feeling drunk. A good solid Drunk. See, you may have sent a person 1million text messages and emails but when you finally meet that person there’s a lot of obligatory stories that have to get told. Growing up, girlfriends, etc., so it’s hard to weed through all that initial feeling-the-other-person-out talk, but once you’re through that it’s easy to relax and just enjoy that other person. Alcohol speeds that process up. It’s rather nice.
Jake West (who is also on my short list of tumblr men to get drinks with) suggested tersely that perhaps in order to keep up the charade that I am TWM I paid a strange man to pose in a few photos with me. Not the case. The way to prove this is to notice that TWM is a much better writer than I. I really mean that. If that’s not proof enough then you’re just jaded and convinced that someone who’s also much better looking than me is actually me—ha!
I believe that I blacked out a bit on the cab ride, and do not remember taking off my socks in the bathroom, but that’s where I found them. I was pretty hungover this morning. So hungover in fact that I went over to the SeamlessWeb website and ordered Tacos. I had tacos delivered—fuckin’ A, man, who knew that was possible. Now I’m pounding the coffee at Boneshakers.
But yeah, friendship can be found in so many different places, and we’re lucky when we realize that. Though TWM and I live on opposite ends of the country I’m sure that I’ll be seeing that guy sooner than later. You just don’t let quality people slip through your life. Some people enrich you, and if you can take anything away from this it’s this: it’s easy to surround yourself with those who let you get away with being a half-assed human being. You’re better to find those people who challenge you to be a better person/friend/employee/human being, you’ll thank yourself for that in the long run. The Whiskey Monologues is such a person, and I’m glad to have met him.
