"Just as with Twitter in the early days, it’s nearly impossible to find interesting people to follow on Tumblr, even if you know they’re there. For example, I knew that Fred Wilson, who I respect greatly, is a Tumblr user (and investor), so as soon as I joined the service, I typed his name into the search bar at the top of Tumblr’s “dashboard” home page. No results. That’s because that search bar only searches what’s on your page, not all of Tumblr itself. In short, Tumblr’s search is deeply broken, just like Twitter’s search was back in the day (and web search was before Google). I remember asking Evan Williams, in 2008, the best way to find someone on Twitter, and his response was “Google them, and add the word Twitter.” I’m pretty sure the same is true at present for Tumblr. (It’s how I found Fred, anyway)."

Signal, Curation, Discovery - John Battelle’s Searchblog