Review<Web>: Tumblr 1.0, the multimedia ‘twitter without SMS’

Dave Karp, the 21 years old founder of bring us the next cool thing that expand on Twitter’s social concept. Look out for the new Tumblr 2.0 on November1.

Watch the video interview with the founder at end of article.

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Introduction

Ever since become a phenomenal success and give birth to a new term call micro-blogging, there are proliferation of similar services that capitalize on the trend. The market for similar service will definitely heat up quickly and given that the entry barrier is low (Twitter been exception since it use SMS) as compared to virtual world, user will have no lack of such free service to choose from.

Twitter’s advantage of using SMS for information update and delivery is perhaps its greatest disadvantage as well. Although SMS service make it easier to update and deliver information since most user own phone, it can only accept limited amount of text entry (Some argue that constraint is a good thing to build concise and meaningful message, that I leave it to you). As such, Twitter somehow limit its functionalities to that of short text entry to leverage on SMS.

Tumblr Site

And that’s where , a free service,  pick up what Twitter has left off. So instead of been constraint by the text entry limitation due to SMS protocol, Tumblr has more leeway to provide more interactive and multimedia functionalities since it is using HTML that delivered over internet rather than using telecommunciation infrastructure.

Tumblr leverage on html give it a lot of advantages because support for multimedia access is really just a matter of adding object/embed HTML code. Thus, it essentially provide unlimited possibilities of every known service, be it Youtube, uStream, Deezer service etc.

Given that wifi access is getting prevalent and that wimax is built as the next global wireless internet infrastructure, Tumblr and similar service will be ready for the next level of micro-blogging with the growing popularity of smartphone like BlackBerry, PocketPc Mobile phone, which integrate sophisticated multimedia support in its web browser (etc Flash, Java applet, Silverlight ?)

As for now, what Tumblr did is very ingenious. By treating video, image, text, link as first class individual entry which user can post to over internet, Tumblr is opening up a new level of possibilities (etc live-blogging, diary, toDoList )

However, despite sharing similar concept, Twitter and Tumblr is not a direct competitor in the usual sense, because of different mode of communication (SMS versus internet) and level of sophistication (Text versus HTML/multimedia). User is more likely to utilize both Twitter and Tumblr/similar service as dim fit.

 

Using Tumblr

Tumblr service can simply be summarised by three operations:

1. Configure Tumblr using Settings, Goodies tabs (Note that in V2.0, these tabs are simply organized in Change Settings menu which make it uncluttered and less confusing.
2. Add entry in Dashboard/Feeds tab (This is where the action begin!)
3. View all entries in user’s site (This let reader view the entries entered by Tumblr user)

Operation #2 and #3 is what users need unless one need to reconfigure Tumblr (etc setup password, email, Viewer site’s html & CSS)

The dashboard is shown as soon as the user login. It is where all the entries entered will be shown sorted by date and time, and user can select the entry to edit/remove/preview and add new entry.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1. Configure Tumblr using Settings, Goodies tabs

These tabs essentially allow user to override default setup.

 Settings

Users can set the site description. The public viewer website’s URL can be set to use tumblr site or own url. The viewer site is where other users can view all entries enter by the tumblr user. Note the site is public for all to see. There is no way currently for Tumblr to setup private viewer site so user may not want to use Tumblr for confidential information.

On top of that, users can set their photo, email and password.

The theme is the style and presentation used for viewer website. Users also create  custom template though everything including CSS, javascript etc must be included as there is no supported for external file.

 

User also change other page properties and blog setting.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Goodies

User can also drag the Bookmark bar to the toolbar of the web browser, so that user can bring up the Dashboard window while user is surfing without going to the tumblr site.

This is also where user configure the mobile settings. In fact, this is actually a misnomer as  the mobile support is nothing more than setting a email to post as text entry, and site that simply convert all entries into simple text and image (No video or flash widget etc is supported). Many will probably ask why Tumblr generate a email address that hard’s to remember ? The answer is because the email is mean to be personal and confidential and to be used by the user only (Remember what you send through email is shown in the public Viewer site !) and to prevent spamming or to be easily identified. The user can also request to regenerate another email.

 

2. Add entry in Dashboard/Feeds tab

After user login into the service, user can access all functionalities of Tumblr.

The Dashboard is where the action take place and that where user enter the ‘multimedia’ entry by simply clicking on the large button that represent particular function.  Clicking on these button  bring up the correspondent input page as shown in subsequent image.

User then enter the information, and when accepted, the dashboard will be updated with latest entry on the top. Note that for Photo and video entry, only the text is shown in the dashboard. To view those entry, user has to go to another page to view the full content of that entry. All these full entries are also fully accessible in Viewer site.

 

To view the full entry, user hover on the right side of the entry, and additional task will appear, allow one to go to view the full entry using the Link feature, or edit/delete the entry. Note that all the entries are not immutable, they can be changed anytime unlike twitter.

The following is the Add Entry page for each partcular entry type which is similarly same as the edit page.

All the input page for different entry function

Note the rich-text editing function allow image (Although only URL-based is supported instead of import from local drive), character style, linking and include a capable spelling checker as well though user cannot add user-defined word into the checker.

	Adding a single photo entry. This will not appear in Dashboard. User need to view it in the entry Link page.
The Quote is simply a text entry formatted to look like quote text !	Adding a Website URL entry

 

Feed

 

This Feed feature allows user to import the latest post from the blog. The full content of the post including video, photo, image will be show in the viewer site or entry preview page.

 

 

 

3. View all entries in user’s site

This is a public site where other readers can view all the entries entered by Tumblr user and where the reader get updated about the thing done by the user. As can be seen below, there are two sites available for viewing. The master site show all the entries including video and formatting in full glory. The mobile site simply convert every entries apart from image into vanilla text (Video become a link) so that a less powerful phone can view the content. However, like the dashboard, the site lack a search function which might limit its scope. The number of entries shown on page can be controlled through the Settings screen.

http://geekycoder.tumblr.com	http://geekycoder.tumblr.com/mobile

That’s really all what Tumblr does !  In summary, it just allows user to enter/edit ‘multimedia’ entry and then consolidate all the entries into a single public site sort by date and time. It really a simple idea but very effective and viral that most people will just ask why they never think of that before !

There are few important features lacking that hopefully Tumblr will address in coming version. One of them is security as currently the viewer site is public only. A private site might make it more appealing to corporate and wider audience. Another is the search function given that the amount of information accumulated over time will be hard to browse. Perhaps this will all be addressed in Tumblr 2.0.

The new Tumblr 2.0

There is a forthcoming new release on November 1. Currently, the new features are still kept secret until that day.

The following might be the purported Tumblr 2.0 ? It definitely look more visually appealing, with more visible functionalities. Tumblr is certainly on the right track as more competitors like Jaiku, will be fast catching up to capitalize on what is see as the ‘next big thing’.

 

 

Conclusion

As reviewed, Tumblr is a refreshing simple service that leverage on the html potential and web browser capability to provide multimedia entries that can be viewed on the user site. It’s potential is limited to imagination if the security and search feature are implemented. With these functions implemented probably in next version, it’s usage may well be expanded beyong micro-blogging and use as a personal diary, event tracking, project monitoring and tracking, live blogging where user can quickly send small section of text faster than they do in email and blogging site.

Video
Interview with Dave Karp:

 

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Review: Tumblr
Type: Web 2.0
URL: www.tumblr.com