Fling Media

Friday, August 08, 2008

Tumblr & Product Evolution

I love Tumblr. It is a great service and just works well. But, lately I’ve been thinking of jumping ship. Why? because anytime I want to try something new I seem to run into a wall. When I try to get help, my pleas seem to go unheard.

This got me thinking about product evolutions. How do you evolve your product, especially in the early days, to recruit early-adopters and turn them into your product advocates? How do you turn users into your R&D team or marketing team?

This all started when I completed my new Tumblr theme. I have it designed, coded and ready to roll. But I ran into an issue in how my content was being displayed, trying to create a container around all the posts from the same day. Nothing too complex and something that every other blogging platform does.

After reviewing all of Tumblrs sparse documentation on theme variables, and downloading a dozen or so themes, I found no help. So then I emailed Tumblr support last week and still have yet to hear back. I understand being a busy startup and having limited resources (if you consider $775,000 in funding for a two man operation ‘limited’). But I’ve sent many support requests in the past of which only one has ever been replied to.

As a user, I’m feeling alone. I feel like I’m using this product and no one cares. No one is there to help me nor is there anyway for me to help others.

Tumblr is currently a free service, but its something I would have paid for it in a heartbeat if they offered a way for me to give them cash. But now I have my doubts. If tomorrow they offered a premium plan, would I pay for it knowing the support track record? Would I ever recommend it to clients? Probably not… now.

So how did Tumblr go from having a big advocate, where I would tell anyone would listen that this is the place to be. To a user a little pissed off and ready to go someplace else? And what can I learn from this?

This is a few principles that I’ve learned from client work and my own forays into product work:

Communities are built around products… period

You have to recognize that once you get a number of people on board your product, you have formed a new community. The quicker you embrace the community, the sooner you will find more people willing to lend their voices to the product, whether it be support, marketing, damage control, or good ol product research.

Start a support forum where users can talk to users. Help each other solve problems and share ideas. If you don’t offer up a place for them to chat, then someone else will. And chances are you won’t be able to participate in as helpful of a fashion.

Participate in your own community.

The most active open source projects are the ones where the key source contributers are highly active in the forums. This is a hard thing to do as you likely want to be heads down on your product. But you have to have face time with your community. Help them, support them. Clue them in on what you are thinking about.

This will build a report between you and your users. A relationship, a trust that will difficult to break no matter how bad you screw up your product later (which you likely will).

As an extra bonus, by participating in the community you’ll start to notice a few people that might make excellent employees, people that have developed a passion for your product. Those are the people you want to hire.

Let your users help you build your product.

I don’t mean open source chunks of code. Find ways to get them involved. Need more documentation? Have a power user write up a quick guide, or start a wiki allowing people to contribute small bits at a time. Need better designs? Have a theme contest, recruit top designers to judge the entries. What to see where your product can go? Have a mash-up competition, getting users to create new products from your own.

The key here is include your users in the process. Make them feel like they are a respected and valued member of a community.

Once you fill a need, don’t let it slip through your fingers.

One could argue that Wordpress would not be what it is today had Movable Type screwed up the announcement of premium plans. People freaked out and suddenly people migrated to Wordpress en masse. A competitor spawned from a product development and PR misstep.

Creating a web product these days isn’t hard. Having a good idea and truly filling a need is. Once you’ll found your niche and gathered users to your product you have to protect it. If you don’t embrace your community people will likely start feeling trapped or isolated within your product. Once this happens you inadvertently create a new need for a new product… an alternative to your own. It only takes one person with a little time and suddenly you have a competitor.

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