Monday, May 3, 2010

Tumblr: Really The Next Big Thing?

I have to admit, that yes, I follow John Mayer on Twitter. He was one of the first celebrities to make it "cool" and was on it before everyone jumped on Twitter's bandwagon. Plus, I've kinda had a thing for him since 2002.
Mayer recently publicly stated how he believes that Twitter has reached its peak, and that he constantly struggles over whether or not to cancel his account. For him personally, this makes sense, as his current interviews have consistently gotten worse, allowing for more critcism to go his way.
But his remarks about Tumblr, another social media site I haven't payed much attention to sparked some interest in me. I'm sure we've talked about this site before in class, but I hadn't really gone further than looking at the site's homepage until now. By the way, here is a link of Mayer's remarks about Twitter, Tumblr and social media in general:

http://jhnmyr.tumblr.com/post/554610743/twitter-isnt-over-im-over-it

So after I saw his post, I decided to take a deeper look at Tumblr. And what I found so far is that it's an impressive blogging platform that ties together Twitter and Facebook's best aspects. You create your blog, which you can post anything to (text, video, audio, links, etc.). This is typical, but Tumblr takes things further than that. I'm still trying to get more familiar with the site, and created my own blog, which I hope to further utilize, but I do think so far that Mayer had a good point in saying it's taking a step further than Twitter because it ties together all of the best things about social media. When you have the ability to follow other users(like Twitter), incorporate anything onto yours and other peoples' blogs (kindof like ReTweeting), and where you can like other peoples' posts and they can like yours (like Facebook) there is much more interaction than we see on other platforms.
I think of all the new new media I've taken a look at during the course of this semester, this site shows a lot of potential (at least if I try to use it efficiently). So my summer goal is to try to give this site a go and see where it takes me.

3 comments:

  1. I also do not have much experience with Tumblr, but it does seem to combine the "best" aspects of its "rival" platforms. I think it is great that new sites are emerging as alternatives to the now mainstream Facebook, MySpace and Twitter. It is important people have a choice and are not "forced" to use one specific platform, that technology evolves to suit the user, not the user suit the technology.

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  2. I have never had any experience with Tumblr prior to reading your post but also decided to visit the site out of curiosity I clicked on the tab, "See 30 reasons why you'll love Tumblr" and was so impressed by the number of personalized options. It seems like Tumblr serves as a social networking platform, where you can still maintain your blogs, tweets, Facebook updates, photos, any many more. I think that Tumblr is just one example of how new new media has evolved and grown that we now need sites such as this one to provide us with a convenient home for them all.

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  3. As noted in class, it seems to me to be much like blogger, a bit simpler and easier to jump in to. Good luck with trying it out, let me know what you think.

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