The (Unscientific) Tumblr Survey Results!
A week ago I asked you all to take five minutes to fill out a quick survey about you, and how you use Tumblr. I hoped for around 500 responses.
I got nearly 3,000.
As promised, I’ve included the results below (in shiny graph form). There are over two dozen, so I’ve put them after the break to save your Dashboard from dying.
These results are based on an unscientific survey that is not a representative sample of Tumblr or its users. It was not sanctioned or endorsed by Tumblr, and is in all ways unofficial. Please include the previous statement on any infographic, article, or other creative output you create using this data. You should also include the words “Unofficial” and/or “Unscientific” in the title of any work you create.
This was done for fun.
The survey was self-reported (some groups of people may be more interested in filling out a survey) and put together in Google Docs (so there are limitations on the responses). There are flaws, but it’s still very interesting.
Finally, some of you have expressed interest in creating infographics, or digging deeper with the survey results. What I’d like to do is release the data for creative people on Tumblr to be able to create something new and interesting. This would be under a BY-NC Creative Commons License. This means you can create whatever you want with the data, as long as it’s not for profit and you link back to my Tumblr blog. You should also include the statement listed above that these results are unscientific, and just for fun. Not too shabby for access to nearly 3,000 survey responses :o) The link to all of the data is after the break.
Click through to see the responses in graph form:
There was a bit of controversy about the age question. I did not expand the age ranges past 30 (because I didn’t think there were many people past 30 on Tumblr, and that breaking down that category would dilute the results). I turned out to be right, but inadvertently offended everyone over 30 who took the survey. Please accept my apologies.
No surprises here.
With apologies to my transgender friends, I received conflicting requests for this question. I had originally only had male or female responses. One person suggested I include a transgender option so as not to exclude part of the community. Unfortunately, I couldn’t change the question (Google Docs is weird with responses like that), but I was able to change the responses. I then had another person contact me to say that transgender was offensive and I should include an option that did not include gender. I was confused, so I added “None” as an option and left “Transgender” as well.
This was more a test of who out there grew up in the 90s and remembered this old Naughty by Nature song.
Blue, Green, and Violet won the race.
This question’s responses were poorly worded. I should have had a 1-2 year option. Sorry for the confusion. It’s a testament to the “newness” of Tumblr that the majority of the respondents have been here 0-2 years.
Very interesting here.
It seems like the majority of folks fall in at somewhere under 500 followers. They largely be influenced by how long people have been on Tumblr. I’d love to see someone explore that in the data.
I overestimated here. There seems to be a serious cutoff after hitting the 500 mark.
I underestimated here, which skewed the results. I was really surprised that so many of you out there have more than 5000 posts. Craziness!
Underestimated again. How can one person like so much stuff?!
I think part of this may be closely related to the number of followers someone has. Again, an interesting thing to explore in the data.
Ruh-roh. How’s Tumblr going to turn that into a revenue stream for designers?
Glad to see most of you are being social and taking questions :o)
And that you’re asking them too.
Your favorite tracked tag. These were sorted in order of popularity on the Explore page last Tuesday. The clear winners are LOL, GIF, Film, Food, Art, LGBTQ, Fashion, and Tattoos (?!).
This is a question where I regret not expanding the answers. Clearly most of you (myself included) have a problem.
Rock on.
Thankfully most of you have been able to play nice with others. I’m unfortunately in the “Yes” category.
I still can’t explain why this happens.
No surprises here. I suppose you could always reblog this post ::hint, hint::.
:o)
I thought this was interesting. On Tumblr, we seem to be more comfortable than usual sharing who we are, or at least hinting (first name, location, school, etc.).
It seems like Tumblr’s gotten a lot better about the downtime. Now where’s the private messaging? :oD
I was surprised anyone rated it below a 4.
We’ll miss the 65 of you.
A special thanks to all the Yes people. You helped make this survey an incredible success.
If this is something you’re interested in working with to create a snazzy infographic or examine the results a bit deeper (e.g. male versus female opinions on things, how number of followers affects the number of notes), you can view and download the data here: https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AuiLPq7NknYZdDR0ajNuTHJyZkV2MUpUM1JLMGM0Unc&hl=en&authkey=CKSagdgH Again, this is being released under a BY-NC Creative Commons License.
This has been a blast. Thank you to everyone who participated!
