Actually, I don’t mind Posterous and Tumblr at all (rubbish markup aside). But there are very few Tumblogs I’d bother following.
According to Tumblr, a tumblog
…lets you effortlessly share anything. Post text, photos, quotes, links, music, and videos, from your browser, phone, desktop, email, or wherever you happen to be. You can customize everything, from colors, to your theme’s HTML. Tumblr about page
Which is all well and good. It’s pretty handy being able to publish stuff quickly with a minimum of fuss. Reading or looking at other people’s stuff is a more patchy affair. Your mileage may vary, as they say, but I’d rather read a blog post about a video, image or story — 100 words is just fine — than just be pointed to it (indeed, these sorts of posts can often spark interesting ideas).
Image from http://iwersenimages.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/writers-block.jpg
It’s a shame when bloggers switch from standard blog software like WordPress to Tumblr (Cameron Moll, for example). Before, we benefited from an expert’s opinion and/or good writing, now we just get a stream of links and disconnected commentary. It’s a more passive experience: writer points to x and reader dutifully follows.
And although comments can be a pain in the backside, they have far more character (and interest, sometimes) than a list of trackbacks or, worse still, a list of x liked this-s. So what? These sorts of lists often indicate how well regarded the author is, rather than the value of what is posted.
Cameron Moll has moved from a traditional blog to Tumblr. And lots of people liked this.
I can understand why authors want to break free from the tyranny of writing several hundred words to a schedule. It’s hard work. And long blog post after long blog post gets monotonous for the reader. Perhaps a lot of what are now popular blogs started at a time when there was plenty to rail against (tables, websites built for one browser, unreadable typography etc.) and the didactic post was necessary to get the message about standards, readability etc. across.
After a while, the posts dry up and the author who still likes publishing stuff begins to consider the tumblog.
If you were to design a blog from scratch it’s maybe unlikely you’d base it on a series of discursive posts, and you no doubt would incorporate links to stuff. Perhaps the form needs a rethink.