I have to stand up and again say a few words in defense of my favorite publishing platform. Khoi Vinh posted a good review of Tumblr, and Cameron Moll followed up. They both make good points — they are after all their personal opinions — but there were a couple of items I feel compelled to respond to.
First off, Khoi comments about the identity crisis inherent in Tumblr:
Tumblr discourages identity. Or, to be more specific, it promotes shallow identity. Moreso than other blogging systems like WordPress or ExpressionEngine, Tumblr blogs frequently offer only scant few details about their authors.
This may be true when spending some time perusing various blogs built upon Tumblr, but once again I believe it is a misdirected complaint. It is up to the author (or site owner) to make themselves known, not the platform. Tumblr offers a description element as well as pages to share more about yourself. In many authors don’t take the time to do so, we cannot fault Tumblr. I would offer my own site as an example: the links above will allow the reader to get to know me a little better.
Cameron, who uses Tumblr himself, raises two issues pertaining to the Tumblr Dashboard:
… the dashboard is virtually useless. If you’re following any more than a handful of active Tumblr users, you’ll be inundated with posts, not to mention trying to track down your own posts among the mix. Also, I dare you to try finding a link to the original Tumblr user’s post from within the dashboard. Not the index page of the user’s site or the media they linked to, but the post they created for that media or text.
Both of these are incorrect.
A Tumblr user can follow many folks if they choose to. But if they do not want a Dashboard full of other people’s posts, they can subscribe to those blogs they enjoy with a good old fashioned RSS feed that Tumblr provides with each account. And if you do follow people using the Tumblr service, you only have to click the link in the sidebar to see only your own posts.
And if you don’t like seeing all the notification as shown here, there is a preference to uncheck. You can have just what you want.
Lastly, the permalink for each post is not obvious, but it is available. Simply hover over the top right corner of each post in the Dashboard and watch for the page fold. I use this all the time as I prefer to read most posts in the design the author intended.
My apologies if I’ve misunderstood Cameron’s complaint, but I believe he was referring to the permalink for each post.
Dear reader, please understand — I am merely responding to the quoted sections above, not the articles in their entirety. I have much respect for the authors and their opinions. Nor do I wish to spend more time on the subject of comments. But I really feel the platform has nothing to do with the quality of the writing or content on a blog — it starts and ends with the person behind the site, not the tool.
You get out what you put into it.
