Their tech support does not seem too good. Many months back I wrote a command-line client to post/edit/delete etc in tumblr.

Posting an image gave an error (using their API). I forwarded that to tech support. Weeks later i even wrote to Marco. But no reply from anyone.

If they're as lean as the article makes out (it is from 2008, so maybe they're bigger now) then I can understand why.

I have many, many fewer users than that and I'm still overwhelmed with tech support requests. Can't login, forgot my password, mistyped my email, feature X isn't working right, etc, etc, etc. Now mind you, most of these are flat-out user error, not actual bugs to fix. Still, I try to reply and help out with each one. Usually it involves some hand holding.

I don't know what I'm going to do if our userbase keeps growing.

Some of that can go into a FAQ, or even be a link (such as cant login or forgot password). Much easier to put a link that reply to each person.

However, surely when you've put up an API for others to use, you should have tested it out. It's not a large API. My email was quite clear too in its title, that its a bug.

I really know what you mean in that last line of yours!

I almost pre-responded to this response, since I knew it was coming.

Put it in a FAQ or even a link - There is a link to "forgot password" on the sign-in page, plus a FAQ, plus an article in the FAQ called "Having trouble logging in?", plus some smarts in the ticket system to prompt people who email about logging in with a message saying, "Maybe you should read this article titled 'Having trouble logging in?'

That's like 4 layers of tech-support between the user and me, and I still get emails about people needing password help.

Trust me: Any site with a sizable userbase will have a lot of support requests. You can find ways to mitigate some of it, but the only way to mitigate all of it is to provide poor customer support.

I still really haven't understood in what way is tumblr different from blogspot etc. Is it just a reduced version of blogging.

There's no size limit. It takes photos, videos, text etc. The only thing is does easier is login (from your own client or command-line), since (IIRC) that's unencrypted (which is obviously not good, but acceptable if what you put up is just some junk notes).

"So far, Tumblr is growing, but it’s nowhere near MySpace’s 70 million users or Facebook’s 61 million or even Wordpress’ 3 to 4 million [...]"

Ah, how things change...

Ironically, this little NYC scene (including the author of this article) is also very incestuous and prone to logrolling.