Tumblris a fascinating example of how to get user generated and communitysites right.   Fundamentally it’s a microblogging platform, but I thinkthis sells it very short of the whole picture.  It’s succeeding bytaking the interaction patterns that are part of a whole variety ofother services, and creating something which is more than the sum ofthe parts. 

Not only is it a compelling user experience, but it’s alsobecome the basis of some very interesting virtual communities.  Amongst a certain subsection of teenagers, Tumblr has gone viral and isgetting a significant amount of their online time – in fact, for heavyusers, I’d say it’s overtaken Facebook as their “platform of choice”.

Stripping the platform down, I think you can identify six key reasons why Tumblr’s become so “sticky”.

Ease of use

As a microblogging service, it’s trivially easy to post content viathe web interface.   There’s a simple rich text interface for text, aswell as single-click post options for rich content like photos, audioand video.   There’s also some Tumblr-specific functionality likequoting existing posts, and embedding chat-like Q&A functions – butall of this is done through a very simple dashboard.   There’s theability to personalise the appearance of your blog through themes, aswell.   The content that gets created seems to lean towards thecreative end of the spectrum from what I’ve seen – there’s a lot ofstriking photography being posted alongside the more angsty outpouringsof stereotypical blogs posts.

Community

Although each Tumblr blog is a separate property – each one has aunique URL – they’ve very cleverly baked in some communityfunctionality.   You can “follow” other posters Twitter-style so thattheir posts show up on your dashboard, as well as interacting withtheir content either by commenting or “liking”.  Liking seems anincredibly simple but powerful function to me – it doesn’t require theamount of effort that writing and posting a comment takes, but itallows you to flag to someone else that you’ve read their content. Facebook have made this a central part of their user experience aswell, and I think that it works powerfully in both directions.   As theauthor, I know that my postings are being read and assessed; as theliker, I’ve got a quick way of interacting with people without theoverhead of a full comment.   There seems to be a trend going on hereof enabling lighter-and-lighter touch interactions – responding to anemail takes a large amount of effort compared with posting a quickcomment, which is more effort than a simple “like” or “digg” or “vote”.

Recycling content

Reblogging is another facet where Tumblr overcomes the silo-likenature of most blogging platforms.   Reblogging content from someoneelse’s Tumblr is trivially easy, and is bidirectional – the rebloggingshows up on the original post as well as on the blog of thereblogger.   By also bringing through comments that rebloggers make -and threading the responses – it turns a basic blogging service intosomething more akin to a forum; but without the topic-centricity thatforums have.   This is something that has been tried many times throughaggregated comment networks that attempt to connect many disparateblogs – Tumblr has an advantage in owning the core platform, butnevertheless it’s still a neat implementation of something that neverreally seemed to work too well previously.

Competition

Being able to create and publish your own content is incentiveenough for a significant number of users, but Tumblr has taken a leaffrom the book that Flickr wrote when they introduced tumblarity.   It’sa mystical calculation of popularity based on a “secret” algorithm -half of Tumblr’s users take it very seriously and spend time trying toreverse-engineer the calculations in an attempt to game it, while theother half profess to be above such sordid considerations and ignore it.

Whether you love or loathe this kind of ranking, to many it’s acompelling feature – particularly for the teenage Tumblr population. Having an external metric of your “popularity” is something that seemsto appeal to teenagers – and it’s made a richer process by the way inwhich tumblarity is also measured across different groupings of blogs -UK blogs, male bloggers, music bloggers and so on.

Reinforcement

Even the most elegant user interface and richest feature set is oflittle use if use is irregular.   A phrase I hear often from my owntame sample set is “keeping up with my dashboard”.  The flow of contentfrom other bloggers, and the flow of their likes and comments, meansthat there’s a constant reason to check back and see what’s going on -and then post new content while you’re there.   It makes the site verysticky, to the point of overtaking other service like Facebook and Bebofor some users.

Bridges to the real world

The final piece of the usability jigsaw is the real-world aspect.  The sterotypical picture of bloggers are sad, pasty individuals whohide in bedrooms and don’t interact with the real world.  No doubtthere are plenty of those on Tumblr, but there’s also a significantportion of users who DO interact offline, to the extent of meeting inreal life.   Tumblr facilitate this by listing real-world meetups andproviding schwag – stickers, name tags, badges and so on – that theyprovide free of charge.   Quite what the real world makes of gangs ofteenagers descending on public spaces to meet face-to-face for thefirst time I’m not sure, but it’s a fascinating process to watch beingorganised by people who’ve never met other than online.

Having said all this, there are the standard questions of howTumblr’s business model will fare in the long-term.  It’s a freeservice, it doesn’t carry ads, and there are no premium options thatcan be purchased.  It can’t be cheap to operate, either – bandwidth andhosting bills must be significant.  Ultimately this will probably beits downfall, assuming that it can manage to ride out changes infashion – while Tumblr users are undoubtedly passionate about it,they’re also likely to be fairly fickle over the long-term.  Butnevertheless it’s a fascinating case study for the kind of interactionpatterns that make a service attractive to those kind passionate users.

This is my last posting to the Headshift blog – after two and a half hectic, enjoyable and what I hope were productive years, I’m leaving at the end of this week.   My immediate plans are to take some time off, catch up with some personal projects which have been on the back burner for a while, and then to carry on doing interesting things for interesting people.   You can find my personal blog over at www.adoptioncurve.net, and follow me on Twitter as @timd.