User:Strathdreamteam/sandbox

Tumblr, written as tumblr, is a social networking website which was launched by David Karp in 2007, with Marco Ament serving as its main developer. Tumblr itself provides a micro blogging platform which is centreed around a dashboard interface. It is from the dashboard that users can post, create and share content with other users. Users can get regular updates from blogs that they frequently share from through the "follow" feature which allows them to follow a specific blog and receive a content stream through the dashboard interface. Users can also choose to make their blogs completely private.

As of November 2012, Tumblr has grown to become a major player in the social network market. Tumblr now has 82.3 million blogs, with 36.6 bilion posts and it now employs 106 people. Tumblr is owned and operated by Tumblr Inc. Tumblr Inc is based at 35 E 21st Street. 6E New York City, 10010. It is currently available in 12 languages.

User Profile
On Tumblr, the user can create their own page which allows them to share posts with their followers. Followers are people who have subscribed to receive updates from another users page, you are also able to follow other blogs to receive updates; this is a similar feature to that of the micro blogging platform Twitter. Users can communicate between one another using the Message tab. When a new user creates their account for the first time, they are either asked to input their interests, this allows Tumblr to suggest some blogs in which the user may be interested in or Tumblr itself offers the user a number of accounts to follow. Each Tumblr user also has their own unique username which helps form their URL.

Types of Posts


Tumblr offers the user several different ways to post to content on the website. There are 7 different options that the user can choose from in order to post content:
 * Text - Text allows the user to add a text post to their blog. The text function also allows the user to post questions to the community and lets them receive answers. This function is typically used for regular blogging accounts for example; if someone is away on a trip they will most likely use the text blog to write an account of what they have been doing whilst they have been away.
 * Photo – The photo option allows the user to post a photo by means of three different ways. One way is uploading a saved photo, another way is to take a photo instantly via webcam. The final way to upload a photo is to input an image URL from photo websites such as Flickr and weheartit. This allows a continuous content stream on Tumblr. Once a photo is uploaded, there is the option to add a caption to it and link it to the person who generated the content. The majority of content posted on tumblr is in fact photos.
 * Quote – The quote option is very similar to a text post in that it is purely textually based. However it allows the user to cite the source of the quote and give credit to its origin. It also provides a different set up in which the quote is seen by other users, to give greater emphasises on the quote by using a larger text format.
 * Link – The link function allows user to post links to other Tumblr pages or external websites, this is useful as it allows the user to direct people from Tumblr to third party content with relative ease
 * Audio- The audio function allows the user to share music via two different methods. One method is for the user to physically upload a music file of their own. Another to post audio files is for the user to use a link from Spotify or Soundcloud. Tumblr prefers that users choose the second method as it means that the content is hosted on a third party site.
 * Chat – Chat Is another features that is also very similar to the text function. The chat function allows the user to post conversations in easy to understand form by displaying who said what for each part of the chat, using different colours to further differentiate this.
 * Video – The video function provides content providers with two ways to post video content on to the website. One way is to embed a URL from a site such as YouTube, Tumblr also allows the user to upload a video from file but again prefers that is done through embedding to save on server space. Users are limited to 5.00 minutes of video upload a day.

Tags
Tags are what users use on Tumblr to find the content in which they are interested in. When uploading content in one of the 7 ways mentioned before, the uploader is given the opportunity to tag the content with what it is related to. This makes it easy for users to find the content in which they are interested, or if they need to find ideas for an art project they can also narrow down ideas, in a similar way with using google images. Users can track a tag, this allows them to continually see uploads in a certain area, such as Food or Nature content. The tag system works in a very similar way to the hashtag systems that is used on Twitter.

Followers
Users are able to follow other users’ activities on Tumblr, this allows them to see what a user with similar interests has “reblogged” and “liked”. When you initially join Tumblr you are able to select followers who have similar interests to you so that you can follow a tailored set of people. Using the tags feature that was discussed previously you can also find new people to follow. This is the main way of interacting via Tumblr. The follower system is very similar to that of twitter. It allows the user to follow friends, family or people they are interested in. Some bands and celebrities will use this follower system as a way to advertise their current projects (whether it be a new film for an actor, or an upcoming tour for a band) to their followers in order to promote themselves efficiently.

Interaction
There are many ways to interact on Tumblr, the most notable is the “Re blog” function this allows the user to re blog something that they have seen on their timeline which is of interest to them and that they would like to share with their own followers as well, this can turn in to a sort of chain event with more and more people re blogging the post. Users can also “like” others posts by clicking the heart shaped button, via their dashboard page a user can view all of the posts that they have previously “liked”. There is also an ask feature that allows users to ask other users a question, this can be done either anonymously or publicly, there is also no requirement to share the question and/or answer if the user does not wish to do so.

Timeline
The timeline is the way in which the user views Tumblr and sees all of the posts from their followers, from here they can also post their own items and re blog others that have interested them. The timeline is the same when accessed via any different browser and is rather simplistic in its nature and very user friendly. The most recent posts of the users’ followers are displayed beneath the toolbar from which the user themselves can select to publish their own posts. Users can set their timeline to one of 2 formats; the first allows continuous scrolling through all of the published content, the second means users need to select to load the next page of content to continuing browsing their follower’s posts. When browsing through published content and another post is published at the beginning of the timeline a notification will appear in order to notify the user that there is new content.

Micro-browsing
There is an official Tumblr app that is available on both the App Store and via Google Play and it is free. It follows more or less the same format as the web browser. Tumblr recently underwent an update of their micro-browsing app in order to make it run more efficiently, with things like being able to play .gifs and using a swipe feature to go from left to right between posts.

Blog Design
Tumblr allows users to create their own blog design through the use of Javascript. Javascript allows the user to full customize and design there own blog, the theme that the user chooses will only be seen when other users access the blog via, the URL. It is not possible to customise the timeline page of Tumblr on which most of the interaction is done. Tumblr also allows developers a medium to sell blog designs to the community. Developers usually charge from between $5 to $50 for a full blog theme

Meetups
Users on tumblr regularly hold meetups. This is when users who have interacted on the website arrange to meet up with each other in real life. As of November 2012, Tumblr claims that there have been 13,860 official meetups.