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Being a college student, I'm told to write papers often and while I enjoy writing, I don't know how I would be able to keep the writer in me sane if I had not been blogging all throughout the semester. I have a tumblr and I'm eventually going to transfer it to my own domain but i was wondering if anyone else here is running their blog with tumblr.
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I use Tumblr for more off the wall stuff, quick video posts or interesting articles on subjects other than music, things I wouldn't really post to the blog. Even though I love Tumblr, I'd be hesitant to use it as a primary platform because of all of their service outages (which seem to have increased over time).
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Yeah, I agree with Sean. A lot of serious music bloggers also have a Tumblr to post things that don't really fit on their blog or just off the wall stuff. Using Tumblr as a primary for a music blog is not the best way to go, imo. It's a great service though, sort of like Twitter on steroids.
I once was a fairly serious music blogger but not these days. Been thinking of getting back into it but because I suck so bad at it I probably won't. Anyways, I use Tumblr as my 'blog'. It's my only blog these days so it's not a secondary addition. And I use it pretty much the way Sean describes. News articles, brief personal commentary, pics (favorites are pics of late 70's/early 80's punk rock posters), and an occasional music post with an mp3. But it's not a music blog, just a blog.
The real feature and utility of Tumblr is like I said above - Twitter on steroids. Meaning a more powerful social networking tool (reblogs, likes etc.). Which is ironic regarding me, since I am the furthest 'thing' from a social networking person. But I like using it as a diary of sorts and ignore the social networking aspects as much as I can.
So, if you are into doing some fairly serious music blogging (written reviews, artist/band interviews, mixtapes, mp3's etc.), then (imo) Tumblr is not the place. For that I would recommend a self-hosted domain and wp.org. However, there are an increasing number of Tumblr 'music blogs' these days but from what I've observed, a good majority of them just post an mp3/link and maybe a sentence or two. Which is perfectly ok. But again, imo, if you want to do some serious music blogging, I'd go another route than Tumblr.
Sorry about the long ramble, hopefully it makes some sense.
Oh yeah forgot. Haven't updated in a long while but - Unforgettable Fire
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I use tumblr, but it's for my tsurufoto world... the music featured there is mostly whatever is inspiring me at that moment. it's at http://tsurufoto.tumblr.com, of course.
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Like Merz said.
I have an account but I haven't really figured out what I want to use it for yet. -
Chiming in... I keep hearing tumblr is a good secondary tool, but I haven't thought of a good use yet. That said, I sorta fail at twitter too, so you never know.
I'm a college student as well, and it funny but blogging actually had the opposite impact on me last semester - it got to the point where I was so stressed out that I almost felt like blogging was just another form of work. I just restarted things and I'm more or less using the blog as a form of procrastination now; it seems like a productive form at the very least. -
Well I am getting better, I think, at using Twitter and Facebook as extensions of the blog, but Tumblr seems kind of redundant if you're already using those effectively. There's a lot of crossover between these things.
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I understand why you'd say it's not a good primary blog but there are a lot of users who have made it their primary and they have taken it to a whole new level of music blogging.
To name a few:
http://yvynyl.tumblr.com/
http://www.headunderwater.com/
http://www.deadasdigital.com/
http://unholyrhythms.tumblr.com/ -
I never meant to imply you couldn't use it or that there aren't people that are using it well, just that Tumblr has serious service issues. The site goes down at least once a day, sometimes for hours.
But if we're talking about using the Tumblr interface to the fullest, I'd say Just Watch The Sky is probably the best I've ever seen. -
"The site goes down at least once a day, sometimes for hours."
sounds like Dreamhost -
lol! but yeah, tumblr kinda sucks for that.
BUT....................................................... if you have a music blog, how about just do "tumblr style" post on said bloggerin'? Who says tumblr is the only way to micro-blog? I've gone that route for throughout the day posts, still got my tweet/facebook connection crap to put it up on twitter/facebook, just pop a quick vid & one sentence, a little song, a little embed, whatever. bloop done. Pretty easy and when you take in tumblr's reliability, it's actually easier and faster most the time.
Shouldn't your blog be one-stop-shopping? THEN, you use your tumblr for your personal shit, non-I'm A Music Blogger! shit or other endeavours. Clever, eh? -
@cb Dreamhost has actually been pretty good to me lately - maybe an hour of downtime a week max, usually less.
@Tsuru That route is great for most, but I like to keep malleus&incus just for write ups with some substance. I don't know if it is actually a wise choice, but I'm hoping eventually my fan base will be people who like to read about music at least half as much as listen to it, and I don't think microblogging would help establish that fan base. That said, I usually just throw up videos and bandcamps on my own personal facebook wall with a quick blurb, and I suppose I could make a tumblr for that purpose.
Has anyone experimented with making a tumblr a subdomain of your main blog? I don't know if tumblr would allow that, but it seems like it'd be a great way to keep the two integrated. -
@m&I, think about p4k. the "substance" are the reviews and then they have their news & vids & mp3s, think of that as their tumblr. You go for the meat, but stay for the candy your uncle keeps in his pocket with the hole in the bottom.
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@awd - I think your last comment was or should be directed to me. Sean mentioned using Tumblr as a side companion (for other stuff) to his music blog but his main point was that due to its lack of stability it wasn't a good choice for your primary music blog. I was off on a tangent regarding Tumblr being a micro-blogging, social networking, Twitter on steroids thing. And I still feel that way. However, since I don't give a care about the social networking aspect, I have not seriously 'explored' other music blogs on Tumblr. And with the links you provided, I can see how folks have worked it well into a true serious music blog. Slap it to your own domain name and there you go. Though and again, it's not the most stable service to use as a serious music blog.
I guess I didn't understand your initial question at the start of the thread. My comment was unfortunately not addressing what you were asking. I use the deal as a 'diary' and a place to 'snapshot' some things I like and dislike. It's not about music for me. Its a place where I talk to myself to drown out the shit noise playing over and over in my head. Music Bloggerin it isn't, at least for me.
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@Tsuru: I guess that is fair, though its a little different since they have everything organized through the same (extremely cluttered) portal with their own custom coding.
I'm now experimenting with the tumblr: http://micro.malleusincus.com. Setting it up as a subdomain was nice and easy, and I've got it linked to from the main blog for now... I'm thinking about some sort of iframe widget scheme to get them both on the same screen but who knows. -
@merz - I completely agree with the inconsistent server issues being an argument against it as a primary blog and I wasn't necessarily targeting you, but I was merely pointing out that quite a few notable bloggers work around all the issues and they still have many people willing to work around the same issues just to read their posts. The social networking aspect of it, like the dashboard, is just a nice way to connect all of the blogs and while there are parts of the tumblr community that is rather embarrassing to the rest, they don't put down how wonderful the experience is.
Also, to note, the server issues have dialed down a great deal. There was a point where tumblr was down for more than 24 hours but since then they've gone down to 30min to 60min. Now the longest, if any, are 15-20 seconds. -
Tumblr for me is perfect for more arty things rather than music bloggin'...
Theres tons and tons of hipster type ones... with scantily clad lady folk... distracting is an understatement. -
I usually check how frequently someone posts before following them on Tumblr. If a user is posting pictures of kittens and girls running through sunny fields every five minutes, I'm probably not following them back.
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I am going to give it a try for a bit by trying a couple of things differently from the main blog. Firstly, I am going to digress more - more nice photos, art, links to interesting articles and so on - and secondly I will not feel the need to add anything of my own, in terms of analysis or commentary or anything like that. I don't know if, in the long run, this will prove to be of interest to people, but I am going to give it a try for a bit and see if it's interesting.
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@Matthew - I definitely like your idea and approach to using Tumblr. I realize that Tumblr is increasingly being used as a vehicle for more 'traditional' music blogging but I still feel the way you describe using it is the optimum way to use Tumblr. I use it the same way with every once in awhile adding a music post or personal commentary. However, I really enjoy more posting art, pictures, quotes, links etc. And I've gotten more reaction to those posts then more detailed ones. It's a cool outlet to just share what you like.
Also, I look forward to following yours, so please let us know when you have it setup. I enjoy your excellent writing and taste in music so I am very confident that I will enjoy things you post on Tumblr. If not, then I'll be my usual prick self, and make snide comments. ;-)
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I use my Tumblr sometimes.
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"If not, then I'll be my usual prick self, and make snide comments"
Yeah, just about all my friends and family are like that. I'm at http://songbytoad.tumblr.com but I've only been having a go for a couple of days, so there's not much there yet.
For myself I think the key is to either pick one medium with which you feel really comfortable and to focus on that - one which fits the amount of extra content you wish to add, how multi-media you wish to be, and so on and so forth.
Alternatively, if you want to take the multi-channel approach, like myself, then you need to really find what each channel - Twitter, blog, YouTube, Tumblr, whatever - offers which differentiates it from the rest, and make sure that there is a point to adopting all these new options and be careful not to just blindly duplicate content in every available medium. -
"Yeah, just about all my friends and family are like that."
I'm going to do something highly unusual, for me, by taking that as a compliment. ;-)
Like it, looks like you are off to a good start. The only thing is the name. Maybe "Toadling" would have been better than "Mini Toad" or even "Tumblr By, Toadling" or "Tumble Toad" or "Toadling Tumble" or....?
Fuck Beavis, you should have asked me first before you named it. :-)
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Luckily, you can change the title of a tumblr quite easily.
That said, gave you a follow and a reblog, Matt.
Its been a few days now, but finally got my first random follower for µalleus&incus -
Shit, you mean that now I've really got to follow Toad's Tumblr? Damn. ;-)
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tumble toad is cute. ;)
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i stumbled upon this tumblr over the weekend. i've never seen anything like it, as far as a tumblr goes (have you?).
http://institubes.tumblr.com/
really interested me. i don't think this looks like a tumblr at all.
while the interface is a bit crowded, i think this could hold its own against many wordpress themes.
i think with something like this we can start to see tumblr as being a truly viable means of 'credible' music blogging, as a format like this really starts to blur the lines between 'real blog' and 'fun pet project'. -
Bloody hell, that's a bit well developed for Tumblr standards isn't it. I do like the ease of posting with Tumblr, but the categories of post can be a bit prescriptive at times.
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I'm at http://bran.do .. nothing too exciting
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Part of why I've never worried too much about themes on Tumblr is that all the people that actually use the service won't see your theme, they'll just process your posts through their dashboard (which is not customizable, to the best of my knowledge). Putting a 'heart' on a post or even replying to one doesn't require me to actually look at someone's theme. I guess you could liken that to people reading your site via RSS, though.
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@brandon holy shit, pizza and cookies?!
@sean (kind of)
am i the only one who never ever ever uses my rss reader? i like being able to see the layouts and theme and formatting. that's what makes or breaks a website for me. or a tumblr. if i wanted to look at plain type and some pictures, i'd read a newspaper. -
No, you are definitely not alone. I never use RSS feeds. I probably should, for efficiency's sake, but I've never been able to form that habit. I'm old school and bookmark sites I want to read (many of them being regular users of this forum, YOU'RE WELCOME). But I definitely use my Tumblr Dashboard. So I'm a hypocrite, I guess.
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Nope, don't use RSS at all either.
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I don't read articles within my RSS reader, but I do use it for skimming headlines across a number of sites and blogs.
I like the formatting, etc of the sites in question too mostly, so that is my compromise. -
I'm a big RSS fan.. but more for massive information consumption. I tried putting music blogs in it, but they don't work as well.. Mine is mostly tech, vegas, sneakers, beer..
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RSS is great. Love my google reader in computer & in app form. <3 Much better than the tumblr dashboard, though I do love the ease to heart & reblog stuff, obviously. <br />
Good layout is important if you are linked up to your twitter/facebook for tumblr, as that's what they see when they click the linky. That institubes is abit over the top though. Especially since it's on tumblr vs. "their own" server/installation/etc. -
I've been using tumblr for my new blog Track each Day, the UI is lame compared to wordpress, but the simplicity of the whole system makes it great for the one song/day format.
The only thing I'm worried about is the formatting for video posts. Just got listed on captain crawl and it's displaying my lastest post with the title bleeding into the main text like this:Used for Glue by Rival SchoolsThe new album by noughties...
by Track Each Day 14 hours ago
Used for Glue by Rival SchoolsThe new album by noughties emo/rock legends Rival Schools came out in April this year....
I assume this is because tumblr doesnt give you a space for a video title, just a video caption. Does anyone know a way to work round this? Will manually giving the song name/artist <h1></h1> html tags sort it?
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