I don’t like Tumblr

Nov 18, 2007 Author: Veronica | Filed under: babble, internet

Tumblr is growing in popularity, and a lot of my friends online have gotten into it (at times replacing their blogs entirely) but frankly I find them overwhelming. It’s not that I don’t like them aesthetically, since the layout is very simple and organized, it’s just that it causes RSS overload. Let me explain:

Tumblr allows people to add multiple feeds that are aggregated onto your “tumblelog.” In this way, it’s almost like Jaiku, except that you get full photos and videos on the page instead of thumbnails like Jaiku shows you. Let’s say “Bob” uses Tumbler, and adds his Twitter feed, Flickr feed, blog posts, etc. The problem is that I already follow Bob’s tweets, and I like viewing my Flickr photos in one large RSS feed of all my contacts. Because of this, all of Bob’s blog posts get lost in this huge collection of feeds — the only way I can see them is by sifting through information that I’ve already viewed in other places. It gets to the point where I don’t continue checking, because there are so many updates to his feed that I can no longer keep up.

I can certainly see the attraction to a Tumblr blog, and I can also see why people would think they’re more convenient for everyone else. Maybe I just prefer to have a little more distinction when it comes to what kind of data I’m intaking, and when. Which way of following do you prefer?

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35 Responses for "I don’t like Tumblr"

crowolf November 19th, 2007 at 12:41 am 1

Well, I certainly see your point. I like to have as much control as possible over my feeds. That’s the same reason why I don’t like ‘read more…’ posts.

On the other hand, the possibility to aggregate all your different networking accounts to one webpage is a very attractive option. But I wouldn’t use Tumblr then
Killer (Really, it's my nickname!) November 19th, 2007 at 12:45 am 2

So many different things that just do the same thing… why not just stick with the simple? I’d rather stick with what I use now. Maybe it’s just because if I start using all of this new stuff my friends nag on me that my blogs are bland or outdated– as long as I keep it looking the same and I only post regularly, they assume that I don’t pay much attention to my blogs, instead of the truth that I’m being lazy and out of the picture with all this new… stuff. Now that didn’t answer your question, did it? :p
Toshio November 19th, 2007 at 12:49 am 3

Maybe like the name implies, you gotta “tumble” with every piece of news and information that you have subscribed to.

I love the simplicity of just using Google Reader to read all my RSS blog feeds. Anything else is just too much information. I try to stick with my real friends and public people who I admire that have added me on Facebook.

After pownce and twitter, reading about my “online” friends news got a little too much and overwhelming.

I’d rather control what I want to read and know than let the information control my reading habits.

I live by the motto: Simple is best.
Jim November 19th, 2007 at 12:55 am 4

Yes, abusing the rss import on Tumblr is a problem. But that’s only if you abuse them. The real good thing about tumblr is that it’s dead easy to update. somebody once said “it’s the blog service for busy people.” that couldn’t be more true. i’m a really lazy blogger…any help I can get in updating is awesome….and for this reason I love using tumblr.
Ehsan November 19th, 2007 at 3:22 am 5

I agree with you, people are over rating Tumblr but i must say that its not as good as people think if they want to have a MicroBlog all they need is a Plugin for Wordpress which gives you Posting Interface like Tumblr and a micro blogging Theme for Wordpress thats all I have setup my own MicroBlog recently http://www.microdiary.com
Ryan Markel November 19th, 2007 at 7:06 am 6

I’m in the midst of reconfiguring WordPress to be like a tumblelog, so I understand why you might feel this way.

The nice thing about using WordPress is that I can configure it to direct people by default to a feed that might have only my blog posts, and not any of the random tumbles that people might already be looking at otherwise.

Tumblelogs lend themselves to the aggregation of little snippets of information – and in the case of things like my del.icio.us links, that’s a good thing. But it’s nice to also have a way to cut through the mess and just provide the meat of what you’re saying in long form – which for me is sometimes once per week or less.

If people want the random crap that’s falling out of my ADD-addled brain the rest of the time, it’s a short trip to my URL.
Dawn November 19th, 2007 at 7:08 am 7

I agree but I love Tumblr! and I’ve replaced my blog with a tumblelog! But I’m in the process right now of ‘un-following’ folks who are importing feeds of things that I’m not interested in. I’m uncluttering my dashboard.

I like tumblr cause it can be whatever you want it to be. But that doesn’t mean I have to follow you either. Similarly, if you’re not interested in what I post you don’t have to follow me.

I try to keep mine interesting from the outside first and foremost. Not enough folks seem to do that.

Still, at least they’re not forwarding all those same tired ‘funny photos’ in my email anymore.
Kenn November 19th, 2007 at 8:26 am 8

I only wish that tumblr had comments and category links. If it had those two things I’d love it!
Mark November 19th, 2007 at 9:34 am 9

I agree with Jim and Dawn. When I first signed up for Tumblr, I used it to track everything I did online: Flickr, Del.icio.us, Stumbleupon, etc. Recently, I started looking at it as a simple way to share things I found interesting with my friends. Therefore, I decided to remove all my rss feeds and only post the things that I want to pass along.

Like Kenn, I wish it had comments. It’s nice to get a little feedback once in a while.
Tomas November 19th, 2007 at 10:21 am 10

I use my tumblr more like a collection of interesting things I find on the web. Kinda like a bookmark tool on steroids… YouTube vids is one example. I can definitely see that it might be annoying for anyone else to follow.

I use a wordpress rss plugin to display my latest tumblr on my blog…
googleman81 November 19th, 2007 at 10:24 am 11

never heard of tumblr and dont usually read many blogs, but how you explain it, it seems a little over informative, like going somewhere to get train times and getting the menu of the board restaurant with it just to be sure. to intake data from the internet i like the service called “browser” most and sometimes use rss feeds.
Anjuan November 19th, 2007 at 11:21 am 12

I agree with Toshio. The elegance and simplicity of Google Reader gives me all of the information that I want from my RSS feeds. I just want the content, pure and simple, and I usually don’t care to look at Flickr photo streams or anything else. Tumblr would just be too much additional noise for me. However, I also said the same thing about Facebook a few months ago, and I now check it on a daily basis . . .
Lan Bui November 19th, 2007 at 11:29 am 13

For this reason I’ve unsubscribed a a few peoples blogs already… I liked the separation. Too much stuff from some people is bad.
Matt Ellsworth November 19th, 2007 at 11:31 am 14

I use tumblr – but i know what you mean about info overload…
Spenser November 19th, 2007 at 12:13 pm 15

I love Tumblr. Quick & Easy.
Nicole Lee November 19th, 2007 at 12:46 pm 16

That’s only if people abuse the RSS imports. Most of the people I subscribe to don’t do that

Also Kenn: You can indeed add comments to Tumblr, via a third party like HaloScan or Discus.
callingbull November 19th, 2007 at 1:12 pm 17

It would be nice if Tumblr provided summarized RSS support i.e. daily summary of Twitter, Flickr. I think that would greatly reduce the feel of info overload.
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[...] Tumblr Etiquette in Response to Veronica Belmont (re: Veronica’s Blog) [...]
NEENZ:"InfinityPro" November 19th, 2007 at 4:08 pm 19

I like tumblr, but I also don’t use feeds. I feed everything into Jaiku, regularly blog, and post different things on my tumblr.
Parrotheader November 19th, 2007 at 11:06 pm 20

I agree wholeheartedly. On my blog I setup a small feed widget to show recent posts by my friends on their various blogs/sites (which I aggregate via Yahoo Pipes.) One friend recently switched his main blog from Wordpress to Tumblr since he spends more time on all the social networks than actually blogging. The only problem is his single Tumblr blog started to flood that aggregated feed of about a dozen other people. I eventually had to add an extra set of parameters into Yahoo Pipes just to throttle his feed’s activity to keep it from overloading everyone else.

I can see the allure for a single ‘me’ feed. But why not just go into Yahoo Pipes and create your own aggregated feed (maybe even taking the time to set up proper balance) so that you can share THAT with people? That would seem a far better service to your friends IMO.
pradero November 20th, 2007 at 12:13 pm 21

Good post, but i like tumblr.
Un beso.
gojeffrey November 20th, 2007 at 1:58 pm 22

I don’t aggregate any of my various postings (Twitter, Tumblr, Blog, another blog). If someone is that interested in seeing everything I have to say, then they can aggregate it themselves. That’s the beauty of Google Reader!
Andy DeSoto November 21st, 2007 at 8:37 am 23

Something I really didn’t like about the feed import was that last.fm was EXTREMELY overwhelming– on my Tumblog, the 20 songs I just listened to on my iPod are weighted the same as the blog post I spent an hour writing. Doesn’t make a lot of sense!

Also– I don’t much care for the interface, either. It took about thirty minutes to delete the contents of the blog; I had imported a bunch of things I didn’t want anymore (e.g., last.fm news) and it was a pain to take care of them.

I’m still trying to love the service, though… maybe I’ll find a way to make it work!
Ben November 23rd, 2007 at 4:25 am 24

Tumblr seems to combine all the feeds into one. For me, this is not useful as it does not show exactly where each item came from. (I use Google Reader).

I suppose it is like claimID where it combines identities but really, it is useless.
Zac Echola November 24th, 2007 at 10:09 am 25

I like tumblr for posting quick items, especially from my cell phone.

I feed in a bunch of stuff to it like starred items in gReader, flickr photos and twitter posts. Oh and I suppose I also feed del.ico.us items tagged for my tumblr.

That said, I can’t stand anybodies tumblr feeds. I use the tumblr dashboard instead to scan through a few pages of posts. The name says it all, you have to let the items tumble over you.

Self restraint is important.

You can subscribe to my stuff individually, but you’re going to miss out on a lot of posts (quotes, videos and images, mostly).
kc November 25th, 2007 at 1:36 pm 26

i personally love tumblr. i don’t use it as an aggregator just a micro blog. I found it hard to get my friends to and family to join twitter becuase it was too webby for them, but they can visit a web page. and i found its a good way to get them to atleast test the web 2.0 water.
ashok November 26th, 2007 at 8:42 am 27

Another problem with tumblelogs, I think, is what happens when they try to be “deep.” It’s always the same effect – you feel like you’re looking into someone’s life and trying to figure it out and put it all together and can’t. It’s like reminiscing over an ex. The feeling works for 2 seconds and then you realize that every tumble log is the same: perpetual emo.

I added you as a friend on Digg, btw – hope you don’t mind. I owe you for introducing me to Lijit (sp?).
Jeff November 26th, 2007 at 12:09 pm 28

A tumblelog (like any other blog) is what you make of it. Like several others here, my tumblelog has a minimum of aggregated feeds. I usually just post directly to it using their bookmarklet thing. It’s a place to put things that I find interesting which might also be interesting to others, and with little to no commentary. So it’s more of a microblog.

I used to aggregate my tweets there but decided that it was too much and that people could just follow me on Twitter instead. Same with my flickr photos; instead of aggregating the feed for all my photos, I’m importing the feed for a specific tag I can add to a photo that I want to show up. And then, I have links to other places on the side (Twitter, Last.fm, my regular blog, etc). I think walking that line is important. Too much overlap will lead to the feed burn-out you describe.
Alex November 27th, 2007 at 6:32 pm 29

I use my tumblelog for personal use only. Rather than using del.icio.us for all my bookmarks, google notebook foe web snippets, flickr, and all those other services, I use tumblr. Its “Share on Tumblr” javascript browser bookmark is really useful for surfing the net because you can grab just about anything. And, with tumblr, all of my things are in one place.
Ryan November 29th, 2007 at 10:13 pm 30

There are so many other services that excel at creating lifestreams (i.e. aggregating all your other feeds), I wish folks would just use Tumblr as it was first conceived. A quick, fun, microblogging platform (and even further, ‘blogging’ in the original sense of the word).

I read the tumblelogs of people that tumble interesting things on the web. Random quotes, videos, IM conversations, things that are too small or random to warrant a blog writeup, but too fun to ignore. And that’s what I do with mine.

If someone wants to see “all my feeds” – from Plazer updates to iTunes plays – that’s what Profilactic, Ziki, ClaimID, Correlate.us, iStalkr, and OnaSwarm is for. Places where people don’t publish original stuff, but aggregate stuff from someplace else.
Steve Banfield December 1st, 2007 at 3:14 pm 31

I’ve had this exact problem — I basically punted on my Typepad blog except for “big” stuff and now I’m posting photos, links, etc to Tumblr. I’ve changed my Feedburner feed to it, I’ve updated my email sig to include the Tumblr adress. I’ve gone over completely.

But I have had a hard time figuring out which feeds to point at Tumblr. I didn’t point Flickr at it for exactly that reason. I have pointed Twitter at it but am not sure I like it that way. Even using MoodBlast on my Mac I’ve had to turn off using it to update Tumblr or the posts get listed twice — once for Twitter and once on Tumblr proper. I’m curious to see if other folks are going to be like me and turn off Twitter updates to Tumblr.
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[...] Belmont recently wrote an article on her blog about how she doesn’t like Tumblr. The reason behind it was because of people [...]
Tom December 4th, 2007 at 2:06 am 33

Hi Veronica,

Tumblr isn’t for lifestream. You could add your Rss feeds to the main content, but it’s not his best feature. If you take time to explore Tumblrs you’ll find Pics, Quotes and Videos that people want to share with readers.

That’s the thing that make Tumblr very usefull!
Tim December 5th, 2007 at 1:25 pm 34

at what point do we get to new, cool, shiny, pretty web app overload?
Cezary January 1st, 2008 at 5:59 am 35

I’ll invent some perception enhancer for you, you’ll see.