tumblarity vs pagerank

22 Dec, 2009 • posts i've written • 1 comment

When I started blogging my thoughts most tangential to my day job in late 2006, Google PageRank was the true currency of the web.

Today, most of my colleagues and my friends don’t blog at their own .com, instead they tumble. And Tumblarity is how they’re measured.

Navigating PageRank is a lot like playing Dungeons & Dragons (or what I know of it). You work tirelessly to collect experience points, level up, and sometimes suffer a crushing blow dealt by the Dungeon Master – aka Google.

Navigating Tumblarity is a lot like playing Plinko. No two people explain their perception of the scoring alike and the score wildly fluctuates almost if by chance. From the outside, it seems entirely hit or miss.

Accruing PageRank is an exercise in empire building. Slow and complex, but ultimately possible.

You don’t seem to accrue Tumblarity. It comes and it goes – like the actual attention span of a human being. Some days you’re hot. Some days you’re not.

PageRank is obsessed with how content is connected.

Tumblarity is obsessed with how people are connected.

In fact, about the only thing both have in common is their community’s derision. Give someone something to be measured against and watch them game, accept, or reject the construct.

promoting the beast

06 Jan, 2009 • posts i've written • No comments

Here’s a free idea. I just saw a billboard for the new Swayze vehicle, The Beast. Swayze is an iconic actor. Good or bad, his performances are pretty memorable. And if my memory of him on SNL playing a Chippendale’s dancer along side Chris Farley serves correctly, he knows how to have a chuckle at himself.

I think it’s time for Swayze to take over the internets. I want to see PointBreakSwayze, DirtyDancingSwayze,  WongFooSwayze, GhostSwayze, and RoadHouseSwayze interact with each other and everyone else in places like Twitter and Tumblr. I want to see mashed up trailers for The Beast featuring those Swayzes. I want to see Swayze himself cut some new clips for YouTube of those characters. Swayze’s recovery from cancer is a great story, and I think people would find Swayzes popping up across the web pretty hilarious and fun. And it might just get them interested in his new series, which besides Swayze, sounds like a pretty familar conceit.