Earlier today, someone who’s music I’m quite fond of (Greg Holden - go check out his music and follow him) decided to create a Tumblr account despite having the unanswered question on his mind: Exactly what is Tumblr? I began to ask myself the same question and decided to take the time write about what I believe Tumblr is.
I usually find the best way to describe something is by comparing it to something that others are already familiar with. In which case, I would describe Tumblr as a simplified blogging service with all the features and services of Twitter - on steroids. Let me go a bit more in-depth into my description.
For those of you who have tried other blogging services out there, (WordPress, Blogger, TypePad etc.) you’ll notice they all follow the same boring standards for submitting content. They’re all primarily text-based, your entries require titles and the products themselves aim more towards professional bloggers in that your entries are more like newspaper articles than just “stuff you wanna talk about”.
This is where Tumblr stands out from the crowd. Tumblr goes beyond that boring vision of blogging by allowing you to easily share any kind of content and then creating one big, fun community around that content.
My usual problem when it comes to blogging is content, or should I say lack of. Blogging usually always feels like such a chore and whenever I actually want to blog, I find that I have little to discuss to justify making a blog entry about whatever it is that’s on my mind.
With Tumblr, the idea is to keep your content short and simple, but also to post your content on a frequent basis. It’s the same ideology as Twitter (where you post snippets of text about whatever it is you wanna say), except with Tumblr you don’t have to go worrying about word limits, short URLs or hosting your content elsewhere because Tumblr allows you to share just about anything. It’s what you decide to share that makes Tumblr interesting. Most tumblelogs I’ve seen usually contain that person’s findings on the Internet, with the only original content they provide is their opinion of what they want to share. It may not be original, but the content is interesting and that’s the main thing to keep in mind when blogging.
People such as artists and photographers treat Tumblr like a portfolio and use it only for photos or artwork, similar to the way they would use a site like Flickr, except post only one or two photos from a particular set of photos they’ve taken, rather than uploading their entire collection like they perhaps would on Flickr.
Some people take the text-heavy route and decide to use the site like LiveJournal by posting about what they’ve been up to. Maybe they’ve began a new life somewhere, or started university, or they’re on the road or even on tour, they just want to document their own lives for themselves or for others to read. This kind of blog is usually stereotyped as the boring kind that nobody reads, but all you have to do is make your story interesting by leaving only the interesting bits in. You may find what you post could even be life-changing to some readers, who perhaps may be going or have gone through something similar.
And if you ever feel like you see an entry on Tumblr you like and think it’s worth sharing, help it make it’s way around Tumblr and reblog it by clicking on the button in the top-right corner, redistributing is how most of the content gets around the Internet. Don’t forget to follow them also to keep up with all the content they post right in your dashboard.
So how do I like to tumble? Well, all of the above! Just because there’s different styles of blogging doesn’t mean you’ve got to stick to one style, why that would make blogging boring!
So for any new, current, dormant or potential users out there that read this, get yourself on here, tell the world how your day was interesting, your plans, your thoughts, the cool photographs you or others have taken, the videos you’ve found or uploaded on YouTube, the stupid conversation you had online last night, the quote that got you thinking or made you chuckle, the new website you just found on the Internet or the song you just wrote, anything, everything, just post it.
For sharing your content elsewhere, there’s integration with Twitter in Tumblr’s Settings, there’s the Facebook application which automatically posts content on your wall when you post to Tumblr and there’s also Tumblr for the iPhone/iPod Touch for posting from that magical device, plus many other products and services that Tumblr integrates with (FriendFeed, Disqus, Boxee, the list goes on…)
If you made it this far, thanks for reading and I hope this helped in some way.
Something I missed? Reblog and add to it!
Now, time for a late lunch.
