The Rise of Tumblr

Blogging. A term that was coined in 1999. Blogging in the early 2000s and late 90’s was LiveJournal and Blogger.

The blogging of 2010?

Tumblr.

What was it about LiveJournal and Blogger that didn’t make blogging mainstream? Speaking from personal experience, a few years back people considered blogging a “nerdy”/”geeky” thing. Why was that? I will try to answer this question.

The answer is: blogging was complicated. People wanted to share thoughts quickly, not fiddle with interfaces. They want to share that video now, not in 5 minutes. Coping embed code was annoying. Learning basic HTML was not for everyone.

Why Tumblr?

  1. Tumblr has it made it so damned simple. Big giant buttons on the dashboard, templates for whatever kind of content you want to share with the world.
  2. The social element, earlier blogging services didn’t really provide the social element. Sure there were commenting systems, but they were slow and inefficient. On Tumblr, clicking reblog and you’re good to go.

Teens, is it just a fad?

As many may have noticed, Tumblr has grown very popular among a certain age group. Teenagers have really picked up this new form of sharing their thoughts to the world. On asking one teenager on why she thinks Tumblr has become so popular (question asked on Formspring):

Q: Why do you think Tumblr’s getting so popular with teens? A lot of people I know now have tumblrs. (LOL, this is research for a blog post; meaning you will be quoted.)

Well I think people are starting to realize that blogging is a good way to vent. And I think many teens need to vent these days. It’s better to let it out on an online “diary” I’d call it, then in person.

Now, the answer is interesting. She calls Tumblr a online “diary”, which ironically is what LiveJournal wanted to be for people. Her first point states that teens need to “vent”, which I think is a valid point.

Back on topic. I really think Tumblr is a fad. It is like MySpace, which was insanely popular in it’s heyday. It will eventually get “boring” and “uncool” as it usually does. Honestly, who still has a MySpace account (except for artists)?

I will be ending this post here. Comments as usual are always welcome!

EDIT 1 - As per the new system, comments are now to be made at the forum thread.