To Be Titled

Striving to be a good dad, a good husband, a good son/brother, a good political scientist, a good photographer, a good cook and a good homo universalis.

Local Network Effects in Tumblr

So, Tumblr introduced a great feature that many social networking sites have. Put in your e-mail address/credentials and then it will comb through your address book to see if anyone you know is using Tumblr. I tried that this morning, and ended up with one contact. Only one among my 200+ contacts in my address book has a Tumblr account, and that person isn’t even using it.

The local networks effects on social networking sites are well known, and my experience this morning with Tumblr exemplifies that perfectly. There might be millions of people using Tumblr, but if I don’t personally know any of them, then no one is following me and I’m not following anyone (unless I choose to follow someone I don’t personally know). There is no single Tumblr community.

For what it’s worth, I’m trying to get people I know off Facebook and into Twitter.