4 ms·

Tumblr is certainly popular but it always reminded me of LiveJournal: a sort of simplified blog-lite with the ability to comment or follow pages/people that yo

Tumblr is certainly popular but it always reminded me of LiveJournal: a sort of simplified blog-lite with the ability to comment or follow pages/people that you like. For the blogger, there's the ability to go as simple as just posting links and images or customize your layout to some degree. The thing that always struck me when I looked through tumblr is that essentially all of the "comments" are just the equivalent of likes or retweets and less actual comment threads. Always seemed like sort of a waste but I guess people use it more like a "richer" version of Twitter without the character limit and with easier embedding of media.

JulianMorrison 11y ago
The thing Tumblr does that's unique is: to join the comment thread you have to have a blog, and your reply goes on your blog (and includes an automatically generated reference to the blogs of each of the other people in the thread). That may sound odd and awkward and in many ways it is, but the consequence is that every conversation connects you to many other people to "follow". And then the posts you get from them on your dash connect you to others. So with Tumblr, it's extremely easy to form "communities" - and to find them.
wan23 11y ago
The lack of comment threads is a feature. It prevents other people from interjecting into the story you want to tell with your blog. For example, if you post something on YouTube it's kind of inevitable that someone will come along and comment that they hate your face, whereas on Tumblr you can write that comment but you have to reblog the item to your own blog to do it. Also, your reblogs are pushed to your followers' streams but people viewing the original post don't see it, so if you write something nasty it just makes you look bad.
- JulianMorrison 11y ago
  Tumblr has long supported connecting to Disqus for comments. It's just that they are a superfluous, community breaking misfeature, so nobody enables them.

JulianMorrison 11y ago

The thing Tumblr does that's unique is: to join the comment thread you have to have a blog, and your reply goes on your blog (and includes an automatically generated reference to the blogs of each of the other people in the thread). That may sound odd and awkward and in many ways it is, but the consequence is that every conversation connects you to many other people to "follow". And then the posts you get from them on your dash connect you to others. So with Tumblr, it's extremely easy to form "communities" - and to find them.

wan23 11y ago

The lack of comment threads is a feature. It prevents other people from interjecting into the story you want to tell with your blog. For example, if you post something on YouTube it's kind of inevitable that someone will come along and comment that they hate your face, whereas on Tumblr you can write that comment but you have to reblog the item to your own blog to do it. Also, your reblogs are pushed to your followers' streams but people viewing the original post don't see it, so if you write something nasty it just makes you look bad.

JulianMorrison 11y ago
Tumblr has long supported connecting to Disqus for comments. It's just that they are a superfluous, community breaking misfeature, so nobody enables them.