I agree with the points below, and also think the method of finding users could be greatly improved. 1) I’d like to be able to scan my address book for friends like most other web 2.0 sites. and 2) Id’s like advanced searching for nearby blogs. Who cares where I’m ranked amongst Americans, being ranked within my city is much more interesting to me. Also being able to search all account in my city (outside of the cumbersome map view) would also be a winner. Finally, much more of a cool feature than anything, it would be interesting to give stats on how popular items you’re posting (when you’re creating a post) are on Tumblr amongst your friends, your followers and the community. It’d be interesting to see when you’re the first person to post something, and should you go to create a new post, to show that a friend or follower of yours has already posted the same thing. In my mind this would lead to a lot more interaction amongst strangers if you see people posting things you’re interested in, and would lead to more re-blogging, rather than unaware creation of new posts.

willw:

+1

theslyestfox:

Heyyyyy tumblr. here are some reasons I think this Tumblarity thing is flawed:

1. It updates too fast: I think having the “tumblarity” fluctuate this fast is kind of silly, because even if someone manages to get a post that becomes super popular and puts them at the top of the list only the people close to them on the list will ever see it (because we only get to view two people above and below our own rank) AND since it updates so fast they won’t stay there long enough for anyone to discover them through said list because they’ll be off it too fast (I was ranked 169 when I logged in to Tumblr about an hour before posting this, now I am 177)
2. We should be able to view the whole list to better find blogs we might like: The reason popularity lists work on youtube are that you can view the entire list and see who is at the top of it. Therefore, you can see what is popular and look at it and see if you like it enough you can subscribe to whatever channel made the video. on Tumblr you can’t see the list except two people above and below you. So…what, you’re only even going to get to discover other blogs that are a comparable tumblarity rating to yourself?
3. If it were updated slower we might actually be able to find new blogs we like: another reason popularity lists on youtube work better is because they are updated once a DAY. Not every few minutes, or hour or however fast you have this thing calculating our stats (see point 1)
4. For the love of god don’t make me click a link to see my follower count: I would still really like to be able to see my subscriber count, as well as my Tumblarity count under each blog on my right sidebar. Because I don’t want to have to click on the Tumblarity for each of them and be redirected to a new page JUST to see if I have new followers.
5. Let us see a list of number of followers as well: I would also like to be able to see a chart of follower rankings. Again, on youtube they have different lists for “most watched videos” (which measures immediate popularity, like Tumblarity) and for “most subscribed channels” (which measures long term popularity and implies that the quality of the blogger’s posts is consistent in being good.) As it is Tumblarity only tells you if someone’s blog is getting a lot of attention RIGHT NOW, which means maybe they made one good post. What if the rest of their posts are not “good” (yes i know this is subjective)? Would it not also make sense to be able to see people who have a lot of followers, and therefore, post interesting things often enough that a lot of people want to follow them?
6. This functionality should be used to connect the commmunity: All the points above are based around the fact that ranking charts on social websites should be more about helping users find other users they want to reblog things from or follow. To expand and connect the community. As it is, Tumbalrity does not really do this effectively, and is currently only making people feel like they’re being pitted against one another in a popularity contest. We should be using popularity lists to find more people whose blogs we want to read, but right now we just see what our popularity number is.
7. Let us see more info on followers: Above and beyond just being able to see a ranking number I would really love to see who people follow and who follows them. I know some themes are altered so you can see the list of people someone follows, but it would be nice if Tumblr itself did this. Why? Because I assume that if i really like a blog that maybe we have similar taste and the people they follow might also be good blogs. Or, that the other blogs that follow blogs I like might have similar content that I would also like.

I know that you’re going to claim that a lot of these concerns will be remedied by new dashboard, but even if it addresses some of these points I feel like the Tumblarity thing needs to be altered in these ways. It could be something that is good for the community and helps people find more blogs they are interested in, but at the moment everyone feels like it’s a highschoolesque popularity contest, and they’re right. If all you get are a number, and to see a couple of people above and below yourself you have little chance to do something constructive (like find new blogs you like) through this system.

Other Tumblr users: Please add to this list if you can think of more ways in which Tumblarity could be improved or used in a constructive way. If all our ideas on this can be found in one place/post then maybe the Tumblr staff will do something about it.