Wednesday, November 17, 2010

The 411 on Tumblr

Since part of my job is knowing what's out there in the world of social media / networking, I've recently opened a Tumblr account: http://eksidley.tumblr.com (although I'm still planning on keep this account as my primary blog).


Tumblr is a bit different than a standard blog. The main difference that I see is that readers don't have the option to comment on each post the same way most blogs allow. Instead, users have the option to "like" a post (click on the heart) or "reblog" a post (post it to your Tumblr page). This makes Tumblr much more conducive to the content going viral - it can be shared with a completely new set of readers with the click of a button. 


There seem to be two major types of Tumblr blogs: those that focus around a certain theme (such as all things Disney, all things Star Wars, all things 90s, etc) and those where users share things they like (photos, quotes, videos...). Here are a few of my favorites:


Although Tumblr does allow users to write out an entire post like the traditional blog, most of the content is produced even more quickly than the standard blog post: a photo, a video, a paragraph, etc.  Tumblr etiquette seems to encourage numerous posts throughout the day, which is why I find it kind of like a hybrid of a blog and Facebook/Twitter. Although Tumblr is called a blog, I think of it more as a separate beast. 


What do you think? Have you used Tumblr? How would you describe it?


Photo Credit (top): chadarizona
Photo Credit (bottom): The Nothing Corporation

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