In this day and age, blogs and social media seem to go hand in hand. However, in the beginning, the lines of blogs and social media ran like the tracks of a subway, each travelling in opposite directions, leading consumers to their destination of information. But, when the lines between micro-blogging and social networking crossed paths, the result of this collision was the idea of Tumblr.
Tumblr has become a hub for short and concise posts that users find inspiring or worth sharing. The posts can be anything from a picture to a quote or even a video clip and everything in between.
The idea for this social blogging site began in the mind of a 17-year old who moved to Tokyo to pursue his idea and hone his computer skills. David Karp set off to Tokyo with a wealth of knowledge in computer coding, but limited knowledge of the Japanese language. After an extended stay in Japan, Karp returned to America and in 2007, at the age of 21, he founded Tumblr in his mother’s New York apartment.
Tired of seeing run-of-the-mill blogs on the internet, Karp got the idea to invent his own type of blog as a reaction to the other blogging tools that were already available.
At the time, blog platforms such as WordPress, Blogger and TypePad were available to the public, but Karp believed these platforms didn’t work for most people and involved too much of a commitment for a person to sit down for an extended period in order to create a post. Karp wanted something that would offer people the chance to express themselves without writing an entire post.
His response to this problem was to create a better way for people to blog. Tumblr was invented as a solution to this problem and was designed to help people express themselves by uploading their thoughts and images as quickly as possible.
Tumblr can be described as the crossroads of Twitter, YouTube and WordPress all meeting at a common destination. The idea behind the site was and still is, to allow users to post pictures, videos and text in one common place online. In the first fourteen days, Tumblr gained 75,000 users and now plays host to more than 42 million blogs with topics ranging from politics to music.
Inventor David Karp talks about how his idea for Tumblr came to fruition. Take a look at this clip to see what he had to say:
Copyright Davison 2013
Sources:
http://techland.time.com/2013/05/19/what-is-tumblr/
http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-use-tumblr-2011-5
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2012/jan/29/tumblr-david-karp-interview
Multimedia:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l60BfZZvWLE
http://www.webmarketingpros.com/blog/platform-profile-tumblr/