Ellis Hamburger:
Tumblr is quickly becoming not just a blogging platform, but a place where people build home pages. Is the future of "home pages" a chronological update of what you're doing? Or, more precisely, are you the sum of everything you share?

Peter Vidani:
That seems to be what it is right now — identifying yourself by the things you share. It's hard to say if that's the future of home pages, because who knows how long pages will be around. But are we the things we share? That's a big question. In real life, that could hold up. These are the clothes I'm wearing, these are the things I want to talk about, here's what I've done lately. It might be more chaotic than a chronological timeline on a page, but it's not far from what we're trying to do here. I don't think anyone can create a new de facto way to represent identity, but we can get closer and closer to how we're getting along in real life.

Ellis Hamburger:
What past technologies have inspired your work the most?

Peter Vidani:
Sci-fi movies, cars, magazines, fashion. Things that exist today that we take for granted, that were only budding in hobbyist circles before. Working on web interfaces and apps feels like a weird thing and sometimes it's hard to say who's doing it right because it's so new. But so was storytelling with film, and designing the gas pedal.

Ellis Hamburger:
When you start a product from scratch, how do you organize your thoughts and prioritize your goals?

Peter Vidani:
The very first thing is talking to someone about it, and to immediately start drawing it on paper. It's important for me to get it on paper first. One, it's a fast way to get all the bad ideas out; two, I'm away from the distraction of a computer; and three, by the time I'm doing the labor in Photoshop, I'm not as worried about what the end product will look like. I also rely a lot on showing the work to other people. We're all in chat rooms, so it's easy to show a few people at once. Then, I try my best to iterate.

• Source theverge.com

• 06/25/12