Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Social Media
  3. News

Celebrating Tumblr’s 100 million blog milestone

Jam Kotenko
By
tumblr-million

We are very much aware that Tumblr is an active member of the Internet big leagues – in fact, quite recently we found out that for users of ages between 13 and 18, Tumblr is actually starting to overthrow Facebook. It’s popularity is inarguable, especially given that Tumblr has now reached the 100 million blog count. That’s around 44.6 billion (yes, billion) blog posts, over 80 million of them made today alone. That’s a lot of animated GIFs, guys. 

Around this time last year, Tumblr reportedly had about 50 million blogs; that means in only a year, the multipurpose social networking tool-meets-blog has doubled its audience.

Recommended Videos

Ever since its inception back in 2007, Tumblr has made a name for itself as one of the creative, user-friendly social networking sites on the Web. In a month, an average of 161 million people all over the world visit Tumblr, 55 million of those from the U.S. alone.

To celebrate this wonderful achievement, we have compiled a few Tumblr blogs that are worth checking out today.

tumblr-strip-7

Start a blog on Tumblr, get a book deal

That’s what the guy behind PeopleWho – a frustrated anthropologist who calls himself “wireless G” – experienced personally when his blog of rants made it big. What exactly makes him so relatable? Everybody has something or someone to complain about (whether warranted or not), no exceptions; the art of complaining has never sounded so bitter sweet.

On a related note, meet Allie Hagan, blogger-turned-author of Suri’s Burn Book. What initially began as a venture into good ol’ celebrity baby-watching turned into something even more addicting – following the gospel according to Suri Cruise, who apparently spares no one from the wrath of her high-brow critiques. The Tumblr posts have slowed down, but now that the book is available, Hagan Suri is back to business.

Last on our “made it to book version” list is The Books They Gave Me, which is essentially now a book about books. In her blog, author Jen Adams recounts the many stories she’s received on how books changed people’s lives, and they offer a variety of emotions that range from heartbreaking to incredibly endearing. Literature is truly a very powerful thing – you can read through the proof by getting the book from various sources online. 

Tumblr tunes

Why shouldn’t we use Tumblr for music discovery? If you’re looking for sweet, sexy time music (or just looking for some mood music to help you, uh, score points), there’s no need to automatically turn to Sade or Kenny G. – Xmusic.fm promises to hook you up. If you’re not necessarily hunting for new songs but are hoping to run into some oldies-but-goodies you forgot or never knew existed, 2n.fm (pronounced tune) promises music to love, one song a week. 

Tumblrvision

There are some serious couch potatoes out there who are also addicted to Tumblr – and God bless them and their TV commentary. Take for example the people behind TV Hangover: Whether they’re excited over Mad Men’s upcoming new season or regretting ever watching MTV’s Underemployed, it’s all the same to them – shooting the TV breeze is what they do best, and they’re loved for it. For a small dose of bookish intellect while zoning out in front of the boob tube, you can recover from all the bad TV-bashing through Slaughterhouse 90210, a blog that finds an appropriate literary quote to accompany a TV show screencap.   

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Jam Kotenko
Jam Kotenko
Former Digital Trends Contributor
When she's not busy watching movies and TV shows or traveling to new places, Jam is probably on Facebook. Or Twitter. Or…
Tumblr’s first official book club taps your inner ‘fangirl’
tumblr book club fan girl

Tumblr's official book club is here, and it's not your average daytime-TV style operation. Instead, the Reblog Book Club Tumblr site is a celebration of Internet fandom culture, and an example of how Tumblr can contain a lot more than porn and selfies. 
Book clubs are often considered the domain of wine-clinking mommies with minor literary affectations and major loves of gossip. But this trope of a catty, pinot-swilling gaggle of book club members does a disservice to the active, thriving communities of book lovers who genuinely want to discuss the books they read. And Tumblr is right there waiting to catch them.
As a platform, Tumblr is a godsend for niche fandoms. So launching the company's first official book club with a novel called "Fangirl" is an especially appropriate move for the blogging service.
The book club works like this: Tumblr users read the novel, and for the first week, they discuss general themes. The following weeks are devoted to more plot-based discussion about each section of the story. Fans can use the Ask box to send questions to "Fangirl" author Rainbow Rowell, who will respond. To participate in the discussion, people can use the hashtag #reblogBook Club, and moderators will reblog their post onto the main page. They can also contribute directly to the main page through the Submit Post feature. 
Rachel Fershleiser, Tumblr's literary community organizer and the woman who runs the club, is excited about the project – to say the least. 
"I have always wanted to do a Tumblr book club," says Fershleiser. "Tumblr is full of people talking about books, and I think there's this idea that Tumblr's cat GIFs and pictures of pretty girls, and quotes about love over sunsets – and it is all those things. But my community on Tumblr is super literary and loves talking about books, and also to react to books, and create in reaction to books."
Fershleiser says that, with Reblog Book Club, she wanted "to welcome in people who aren't necessarily talking about books on Tumblr all the time." Finding the right book to launch Reblog Book Club with was a "challenge," she says. But then came "Fangirl."

With the release of "Fangirl," Fershleiser knew it was the perfect title for the community she is trying to curate. Thus, Reblog Book Club was born."Fangirl" author Rainbow Rowell is "super active on Tumblr," says Fershleiser, as is Noelle Stevenson, who designed the book's cover (above). Plus, "Fangirl" is "about a young woman who writes fan fiction and is part of a passionate online fan community," says Fershleiser, making the fit even more perfect.
"The book is technically kind of considered young adult, but I knew people in their 30s and 40s reading it and loving it," says Fershleiser. "So you have this book that's appealing to all ages, and is about how important it is to love the books we love and to have online friends to talk to about the books we love." 
The book club is still in its early stages, but "Fangirl" is already getting a warm reception. Fans are creating playlists, artwork, and sharing recipes inspired by their experience reading. And if they're drinking wine and talking trash, at least they're doing it in front of their computer screens. 
(Fan art by Hey Veronica)

Read more
WordPress says Tumblr blogs galore exported in wake of Yahoo acquisition
tumblr yahoo acquisition

Wordpress founder Mike Mullenweg weighed in on the Tumblr-Yahoo deal by noting that Wordpress saw a big spike in blogs exported from Tumblr.
Mullenweg detailed the jump on his blog: "Imports have actually spiked on the rumors even though it’s Sunday: Normally we import 400-600 posts an hour from Tumblr, last hour it was over 72,000."
That's a massive increase - does it mean that Tumblr is going down?
Yahoo sealed the deal with Tumblr this weekend, purchasing the beloved blogging service for $1.1 billion and instigating thousands of speculative blog posts (including our own rather skeptical take, admittedly). Tumblr fans are worried that the Yahoo old guard will contaminate their platform, and that this purchase will inevitably result in a substantial increase in ads and marketing materials on Tumblr.
It's too soon to tell whether Yahoo will drag Tumblr into the uncool muck or whether Tumblr will inject a little hipness into Yahoo, but these fears are entirely founded. Tumblr needs to crank monetization up a notch - it's already been working on improving mobile ads - and the Yahoo acquisition will give the Tumblr team access to a larger advertising team. So yes, there will be more ads on Tumblr.
And of course, users don't like change. They are rejecting Yumblr in a way similar to how Instagrammers rejected its acquisition by Facebook. 
This initial jolt doesn't mean Tumblr is doomed. After all, people always lose their minds when a favorite smaller service gets snatched up by a larger one. After all, Instagram is doing better than ever, with over 100 million users. 
72,000 seems like a massive number, and if that amount of people continued to jump ship every hour this week, Tumblr would definitely be in a pickle. But this is a one-time reaction to news, not the result of any negative changes that have happened on Tumblr yet. If the Yahoo acquisition results in a feature that users really, really hate, there may be an exodus, but it won't be as rapid-fire.
If Mullenweg hadn't pointed out this unusual increase, Tumblr may not have even noticed that it happened with all of the commotion that's happening at their offices - they get 82 million blog posts a day, so that 72,000 is just a teensy slice of the blog pie.
So basically, Tumblr is going to lose some die-hard fans who resist change. That's inevitable. But there won't be a real, sustained loss in users unless Yahoo actually starts ruining it.

Read more
A quick preview of Babblr, the app bringing real-time chat to Tumblr
babblr turns tumblr into a real time chatting portal main press 03

Tumblr is quite the popular online hangout for those on the younger side of the Internet audience, even more than Facebook; more people are signing up for the site, where they can start their own blogs and check out their friends’ as well. Thanks to Babblr – an app that makes use of the Tumblr API – users can now also chat instantaneously through the blog platform, making Tumblr an even more multipurpose site, helping it take even more steps from blogging platform to social network.
Tumblr, as it is, only allows users to follow blogs, ♥ posts, and append re-blogged posts with their own comments. There’s a “Send Fan Mail” option that allows users to correspond with each other, but nothing that allows real-time communication. Babblr is a third-party app that lets Tumblr users chat with their followers and friends. Groups can also be created through the app, making it easy to remember user association.
The team behind Babblr is comprised of Trevor Clarke, Brandon Sowers, and Brett Williams, all also part of the team behind Sevenly, a weekly cause activation platform. The idea for the chat mechanism was a fun side project thought of by Clarke, who considered it a great tool for keeping tabs on Tumblr followers in real-time. “[Babblr was] built with angular, node, and housed in a [Google Chrome] extension. It is a robust app ready for communication with all of your followers,” Sowers explains.
The beta features

The beta version of Babblr is minimalist and straightforward. Once you opt-in and allow Babblr access to your Tumblr account, it automatically adds your contacts into a general chat list that has “Groups," “Following," and “Followers."
Groups – Users can create specific Groups comprised of contacts from the other two lists. The beta version currently does not have an auto-complete or dropdown menu that shows you your contacts’ usernames for easier adding, but according to Sowers, the dropdown feature is something they are thinking of adding very soon.
Following/Followers – Are you following too many Tumblr users? Do you want to clean up your chat list?  The beta version currently does not have a way to remove individual contacts from the general chat list (it seems to be an all-or-nothing situation at the moment), but will eventually be included as a function to act as a “stalker blocker,” confirms Sowers. Another way to minimize clutter on the general list is adding people you actually want to chat with into Groups – those contacts won’t disappear from the list even though you decide to uncheck the entire Following or Followers lists in Settings.

Read more