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What’s Up with Tumblr?
By Mark Evans | November 19, 2008
While Twitter is capturing most of the spotlight within the microblogging landscape, there’s another player showing solid growth: Tumblr.
Tumblr could be described as a blogging-lite platform that lets people create blogs and journals without the frills of other platforms such as Wordpress and TypePad.
In many respects, Tumblr is a cross between Twitter, Flickr and Wordpress. It’s a way to write posts, and share photos, video, Web links and audio without being limited by having only 140-characters, while still being able to enjoy the basic features of a blog.
What particularly nice about Tumblr is it’s quick and easy to create your own Tumblr, and it’s very user-friendly so even if you’re not a hard-core blogger, it’s a snap to post.
Here’s the Tumblr interface, which includes basic functions such as bold, italics and hyperlinks:
Tumblr is a free service, although the company, which received $750,000 in seed funding from Spark Capital and Union Square Ventures, is considering the launch of premium services in the future - something that may happen sooner than later given the current economic landscape. (Note: Union Square Ventures also has an investment in Twitter).
To give you a sense of how Tumblr is doing, here’s a chart comparing its growth (U.S. unique visitors) with Twitter. As you can see, Twitter’s growth trajectory may be more pronounced but Tumblr is also experiencing good momentum:
More: If you’re interested in alternatives to Tumblr, check out Posterous. TechCrunch described Posterous, which is a YCombinator start-up, as the “simplest blogging platform to date. Yes, it’s even easier to use than Tumblr”.
As well, Inquisitr reports that IBM recently launched a new initiative called Smarter Planet that will be using Tumblr that IBM describes as “a very easy way to share links, quotes, videos, images, audio and other content, a sort of spontaneous form that the creators call a “tumblelog.” Meanwhile, Ars Technica has a review on Tumblr, as well as a comparison of how Tumblr stacks up to Tumblrette on the iPhone.
Technorati Tags: microblogging, tumblr, twitter
Topics: Microblogging |