Focused: Short form. Multimedia. Tumblrs seem to be tightly focused on a topic and linked back to sources.
Dashboard. Like Twitter stream.
Persistant in ways that Twitter isn’t.
Make posting choices by media: text, quote, image, vid. But it slants toward image.
Uses follow - followers model, like Twitter.
Search functions for own stream, follower stream, Tumblr overall
Wiki-like markdown coding
Customize settings
Goodies gives alternate ways of posting: by phone, by smartphone, bookmarklet, IM, Twitter
Integrate with other social media: reposts to Facebook, Twitter.
can limit readers to followers
allows commenting and controlling comments
Uses
Short-form blogging, with images
lifelogging, especially mobile
collecting and commenting on source material and other media: blog posts, media, … See Rhetorica, Comically Vintage.
collecting print sources using quotes. Tumblr links to the source.
Chronological collection by topic or subject
post quickly and return to develop later.
moblogging - especially by phone
Tumblr pages can be, designed to influence reading - a template well-selected, number of posts per page varied, posts made intentionally and varied with effects in mind: use of the quote format for emphasis or raising an insight into a quote, images placed and well-captioned.
