Jason Murphy

Tumblr Flushes 30 Day Challenge Content

Aug 18, 2007 Business & Marketing, Lookatme, I'm Web 2.0!, Search and SEO

Yeah, I’m still involved in these 30 day challenges, both the internet marketing challenge and the one I buried myself in. Things are going well for me with my own challenge. I had one small blip when my host surrendered the DN servers for the day. Other than that things have been going good for my blog posting schedule.

Can’t say the same about the original 30 Day Challenge. As you may recall, I was a little disappointed with the 30DC during their halftime show. I felt they had been feeding us a too much milk and not enough meat. Well, last week they really started getting going by having everyone create accounts on a third-party blog service called Tumblr. I was a little turned off by the fact that they chose Tumblr to host the content. I knew they were going to have a third-party somewhere, even if it is parasitic SEO, because they promised you wouldn’t have to pay any money to buy a domain and host your own blog to participate in the challenge. I really was hoping they had developed their own article directory or something that would get more of a green flag for the flood of content it was about to receive. I imagine the DBA over at tumblr woke up on Thursday and was wondering why his database tripled in size overnight. The tumblr staff saw thousands of new accounts using the same cookie-cutter formula posting a bunch of articles with affiliate links in them. Yeah, I’d be a little pissed off too if my service that was previously fairly pristine started getting a bunch of gunk in it. So I bet you can’t guess what happens next?

Yup. Tumblr axed most of the new accounts.

Now the Ed, Dan, and Rob three tell us there is nothing to worry about. They say that they were aware this was a possibility. Oh really? If you did foresee this coming, then why didn’t you try to disperse the challengers to use 10 or so similar services instead of having them all swarm to one. I know it’s not the service that’s making the challenge what it is, but rather it’s the methodology behind it. Of course that makes sense. But what’s the true lesson.

Reminds me of learning to canoe in cub scouts. There were four of us in the boat I was in. We had a couple of white knucklers on board, they sat in the middle. I was on the rudder while another cub scout my size was at the bow. By nature, canoes rock a little when they are in the water. Well before we could even completely launch from the dock, these two knuckleheads (that’s punny) got in at the same time and felt it wobble. They both leaned to one side of the canoe. Then the canoe started tipping to that side, so they hurried and jumped to the other side. In one big motion the canoe swooped back out from under them and dumped us all in the water.

Lesson one: Don’t jump in the boat at the same time.

Lesson two: Sometimes it’s easier to be unique. Needless to say, I’m a big fan of kayaking.

• Today is Day 10 out of 30 for My Own Thirty Day Challenge.
• This post is also part of the 30 Day Challenge Series.