Last month, I was inspired to dig deeper into microblogging, particularly Tumblr. I had almost written off Posterous - enter a timely blog post by Jennifer Van Grove of Mashable Posterous vs. Tumblr: A Head to Head.
Am I sure glad I read Jennifers's post and tried Posterous again. And before you Tumblrs or Posterous peeps start taking sides, I believe there are markets for both and they both have a chance to be successful - in fact I'm putting myself out there and calling 2010, the year of the microblog that is more than 140 characters - the time has come, or maybe it's here already...
There are many reasons to like Tumblr. First and foremost for me is the usability or ease of use - it is one of the easiest ways to blog that I've come across. Some other cool things about it that you have total control and flexibility on the theme, and the code is super clean and easy to work with. You can embed anything, just about anywhere and Tumblr will host it all for free.
It is also an emerging "place to be" for young people, cool peeps, and all the creative types - I can't help but think of Gladwell's story on Hush Puppies in TheTipping Point. Are Tumblrs the small crew of influencers like the little crew of people in NY that started wearing Hush Puppies in NYC, creating a national trend or word of mouth "epidemic" (as Gladwell would say)?
Tumblr's founder, David Karp said in a 2008 article:
“Right now, we’re going after artists”
All you have to do is go on Tumblr and see what's popular and you'll be amazed as how creative the Tumblr community really is.
Another really nice feature is the dashboard which works like an rss reader. You follow people and their posts turn up in your dashboard, you can "like" the posts or reblog. So if you were running a community blog you could aggegrate or reblog all the popular/relevant posts to your blog - this is a powerful and easy way to create a community blog whether for an organization, a specific blog of interest, or even for as a citizen's blog for a city/town.
Tumblr is a way to both control the message and to reward your most loyal consumers by offering them a platform via aggregating their blog posts. “You can find the most positive voices in the community and link to them...you can vindicate them and turn yourself into a positive force.”
Even if you think The Tipping Point is Toast and you follow Duncan Watts, I can still see Tumblr going mainstream over the next few years, given the heavy concentration of artists, young people, and trendsetters that are on Tumblr.
I also think a new generation is emerging that could be looking for its own space outside of the mainstream networks like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter...
So let's take a look a closer look at some of Tumblr's functionality and tools:
- follow (click follow on any blog and it's like adding an rss subscription and blogroll at the same time, of course people can follow you too)
- dashboard (see what all your peeps are doing in one place, a built-in aggegrator / rss reader)
- share (easy one-click bookmarklet makes it easy post)
- like (you can heart or "like" any post)
- reblog (with one click you can reblog a post you like and add your comments)
- comments (not built-in but you can add a super-duper commenting platform like disqus rather easily)
- answers (this is new for me, but you can ask a question and let other folks answer, though it won't be public and will only show in your dashboard)
- autopost (to twitter only, though the short urls are a little long)
From what I gather, Posterous is known for seemlessly posting photos, images etc. via email. Tumblr has the same deal, but a weird email address that you'll never remember. It is probably the sign up process that gave this reputation to posterous. Kind of ridiculous how easy it is to sign up for posterous, and I mean that in a good way. Their front page says it all:
But that's just a small piece of it. The user interface is so simple - I suspect it will appeal to many first-timers. I think I'm most impressed with the co-founders - the boys can code! Take a look at where you can autopost with Posterous:
Like what ping.fm or hellotxt is for syndicating status updates of 140 characters, Posterous autoposts blogs and networks aplenty. Now, there are some quirks and bugs but overall, I have NEVER seen better integration with Facebook. Please let me know if you see any!
What do you mean? OK, let's take importing blogs into Facebook. Typically, that is done through your Notes application. Problem is that importing blogs into Facebook (notes) doesn't always look pretty in feeds and on your profile.
And you can also import video embeds into Facebook feeds from Posterous.
And let's not forget the Posterous' built-in social media tools:
- subscribe (works the same as Tumblr's follow - dashboard/reader/blogroll functionality)
- dashboard (yes indeed)
- share (Posterous Bookmarklet is very, very, very good)
- like (not on Posterous)
- reblog (not a specific function but you can use the Super Posterous Bookmarklet)
- comments (Built-in, with follow comment thread and post to facebook function)
- autopost (you can autopost to many of the popular networks, see links above, including Tumblr)
A few more tidbits:
- Themes: this is part of Tumblr's culture and honestly it's really fun to create and explore themes. Posterous does not have themes, though they are on the way. Personally, when I want to code and get creative, I prefer Tumblr. When I want to post, I'm leaning toward Posterous.
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO): For a while it seemed that Google was ignoring microblogs like Tumblr and Posterous. Well, Google just added microblogs to its index. That said, last I checked you still have to customize code to optimize Tumblr posts; Posterous has done this already for you.
- Google Analytics: Both Tumblr and Posterous make this easy for you to add.
- Custom Domains: or can of worms... Owning content is a hot/sensititive topic. On one hand it is sweet that both Tumblr and Posterous will host your content, even when you use a custom domain name. On the other hand, if folks are bent on "owning" content then they will go for wordpress or typepad. I think a healthy combination-integration could be the trick! This deserves a post all on its own.
The last piece to this post is a comparison of Demographics and Traffic.
According to Quantcast, Posterous users tend to be middle-aged Asian and "Other" males, with no kids, and lots of fancy degrees. Tumblr has a heavy concentration of teens and millenniels; Tumblrs tend to be Asian and "Other" males, with no kids, with a college education or less.
And below is a spiffy traffic comparison from Compete.com. Looks like Posterous has a ways to go to catch up but that could only be a few good PR pieces and celebrity evangelists away. Many more rounds to come on the subject.
What do you think?
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