Bored of your blog? All tweeted out? This week I’ve been having a second look at Tumblr, which sits somewhere between those two. When I first played with it over a year ago I wasn’t very excited. I don’t know what’s exactly happened since then, but Tumblr looks great now!
You’re not limited to 140 characters, but like Twitter the social aspects are central and built into Tumblr. Posts are split by category – text, photo, quote, link, chat, audio and video – and sharing any of these things is a breeze. The site gives you a Dashboard, which shows you a news stream of posts by you and the people you follow, like Twitter, but as it supports rich media, your Tumblr dashboard will be full of audio, video and images.
Go to the website to set up your account with an email address, and then off you go. The site looks good and is very usable, but even simpler is the Firefox add-on Tumblr Post. If you want to share something, simply drag it to the little icon in the status bar, and it will post on your Tumbleblog automatically! Until computers achieve sentience, I’m not sure blogging could be easier!
When away from your computer, that’s no excuse as there are Android and iPhone apps that allow you to blog just as easily on the move. The free iPhone app Tumblr is especially well designed, allowing you to record audio, photos and video on your phone and upload them, as well as use all the other Tumblr features.
While I love Twitter for keeping up with news, Tumblr seems much more fun. It doesn’t have the huge user base of Twitter but I’m sure it will grow as more people try it, as it’s so easy to get into. Come on, join in: Facebook and Twitter are so last decade!
