Before Pinterest, there was Tumblr. A way for people to collect inspirational images and quotes all in one place.
Poor old Tumblr. Sold off to Yahoo, many have thought that Tumblr will be neglected like Flickr was for so many years, and we have already seen changes such as many potentially nsfw searches being blocked by their apps (apparently this has been resolved though)
Tumblr is a microblogging platform which allows users to post images, quotes, etc, as well as “reblogging” posts – think of it like retweeting on Twitter. It’s great for a side blog – you know when you’ve got something to say that’s too long for a tweet, but it’s not blog worthy?
Some people use Tumblr to collect their Instagram photos together – you could use this as a way to back up your Instagram photos, or like this spaniel based Tumblr account, collect photos of a certain subject in one place. A Thrifty Mrs posts the latest sales and special offers she’s heard about on this Tumblr account.
Tumblr is great for quick posts because of things like their iPhone apps allows you to type out a few sentences. Many guides online will tell you that Tumblr is no use as a main blogging platform, but just look at What I Wore. Jessica Quirk has gone from posting photos of her daily outfits to becoming a full time style blogger and author.
Tumblr doesn’t have comments built into the system, but you can install Disqus comments on there (here’s how to do that if you’re wondering!) which means you can still interact with your followers, even if they don’t want to reblog your posts to add comments on.
Tumblr is a very customisable platform with lots of themes available for free from the built in catalogue. If you do decide to make Tumblr your main blogging platform, you might want to pay for a theme – there are some beautiful ones available for under $50.
Tumblr can also automatically tweet and post your updates to Facebook – handy if you forget to do it yourself (…not that this ever happens to us…ahem…)
If you’ve got a Tumblr account, let us know the address! We’d love to see them!
Things I hate about Tumblr: unlike Pinterest it doesn’t force people to accredit a photo to an original source. Sick to death of my (and others) photos being stolen and posted on Tumblr with no credit at all. Then to add insult to injury there’s often no way to contact people to tell them to stop doing it. Lose/lose!
Good points, which I forgot to include. With both Pinterest and Tumblr though, it’s dependent on the person posting the image whether they attribute it correctly. It would be awesome if Tumblr would improve attribution/reporting violations now they’re a part of Yahoo (It feels like it goes against Flickr in a way!)
(If you need to, you can find the source of an image by using things like Tineye.com – more details in this post!)
Waaaah, I love Tumblr. But it’s something that, for once, I don’t care whether people look at it or follow me. I just like to look at and collect images I like. Not a particularly social network for me.
X
I’ve not really got the hang of tumbler yet but here’s my link anyways http://acesparklestar.tumblr.com/ Ijust sort of link my blog posts! Adele x