Will Tumblr Replace Posterous?

When Posterous first came out, I was all a twitter (can I say that?).

Here was a blogging platform that was pretty and that I could use either on the website itself or from afar using my ever-so-smartphone. Oh. It was also free.

Of course, as we’ve learned, Posterous is in hospice care and will soon end up in someone’s blog post under “Whatever Happened To…”

So.  What’s the next big thing?

What Is Old Is New, Again

Enter Tumblr.

Believe it or not, Tumblr has been around for awhile. I’m no historian but I remember hearing about it on an old blog called Technology Evangelist so long ago I can’t remember how long ago it was. At the time, I was so involved with Active Rain that all I could think was WTF before I knew what WTF meant.

So, now with Posterous gasping its last breaths it was time to look around for a platform that might be:

a) fun to use,
b) easy to use,
c) visually pleasing,
d) and free.

Yep. Free. As in no cost. And no ads.  At least none that Tumblr puts up.  Some users have been known to put Amazon affiliate widgets in their sidebar but, hey, at least they can.

What’s It Got?

Tumblr is actually a pretty fully featured platform.  It’s almost completely ala carte and you can make it as simple or fancy as you want.

Lots of free themes, lots of premium themes. You can message other Tumbler-ers. You can reblog posts that you like (shades of Active Rain). You can click the little heart icon which is sorta like the little thumbs up icon on that other social network. You can add comments through Discus (Tumblr doesn’t support native comments). You can customize the look of your theme and you can even add custom CSS if you have the chops to do so.

It’s got decent search and it’s got famous people. Beyonce,who actually puts a Tumblr menu link right on her official website, George Takei who is also super popular on that other social network. There also tons of media outlets from The New York Times to The Utne Reader nicely categorized for you leisurely perusal.

Bottom line:  it’s not all cat videos and positive thinking quotes (not that there’s anything wrong with that).

Oh. And It’s Mobile

Yes, indeedy. Just like Posterous, you can blog from your phone, send photos from your phone…links, quotes, chats, audio, videos.  All of it. From your phone or other mobile device.

The downside, of course, is that free comes with a cost. It’s not your platform. So, like Posterous, there is a chance Tumblr might go bye-bye one day. If you really wanted total and absolute control with and IDX page and home search and all the other things Realtors want you might want to get a WordPress website/blog. Maybe from someone like cough Mike Mueller cough.

If you’re just starting out and playing around with this whole blogging thing and don’t want to spend money, Tumblr is the way to go.