Tumblr has
been in the news a lot recently because of their huge user numbers (there’s
also been some question of whether or not they are a “bot fest” – but I’ll
leave that for others to analyze.) Back in 2009, I compared Tumblr to Posterous – but since that time Tumblr has
just pulled away. So much so that Posterous seems to have seen the writing on the wall
and is now pivoting in a new
direction. But I thought it would be good to take
a look at how Tumblr fairs against the larger, more established blogging
networks – namely WordPress.com and Blogger.com (now part
of Google).
In terms of unique visitors, there isn’t any comparison –
WordPress continues to dominate. Blogger has seen attrition in their numbers
and has now fallen to third place (maybe the recent move to integrate Blogger
into Google+ will help here).
In terms of visits, while Tumblr passed Blogger more than a
year ago, it has now moved into a tie with WordPress.
But while Tumblr has many fewer unique visitors, those
visitors are viewing a lot of pages. In fact, Tumblr is now completely
dominating WordPress and Blogger in this area.
And in terms of attention, Tumblr is once again dominant.
I think the reason for the higher level of engagement on
Tumblr (as measured in Page Views and Attention) probably comes down to a
couple of key properties of Tumblr:
1. Tumblr functions more like a social network – thus
people that use Tumblr tend to also subscribe/follow other Tumblrs – creating a
strong network effect.
2. Cross-blog tagging – this brings a bit of Twitter to the blog network – allowing people to easily aggregate content, by tag, across blogs. This also, no doubt, aids in content discovery.
3. Tumblr reduces barriers to publishing content – unlike a traditional blog, where people feel the need to provide richer content, Tumblr tends to encourage simple posts.
2. Cross-blog tagging – this brings a bit of Twitter to the blog network – allowing people to easily aggregate content, by tag, across blogs. This also, no doubt, aids in content discovery.
3. Tumblr reduces barriers to publishing content – unlike a traditional blog, where people feel the need to provide richer content, Tumblr tends to encourage simple posts.
What do you think? Are you using Tumblr now in place of
other blogging networks? How do you decide which one to use, and for what
purpose?
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