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Tumbling Down?
18. Aug, 2009 by Adii Rockstar in Interactive
Feeling rather inspired this morning, I decided to present myself with a new challenge: to develop a new tumblelog framework built onto our favourite platform – WordPress. A few hours later and I’ve got the basic ideas in place for where I want to go with this. But nothing around here at Woo would ever be complete if we didn’t throw this out there for your feedback first…
So… Recently I’ve been very impressed with Tumblr and have been surprised by their popularity and adoption rates. Looking at myself however (and the difficulty in posting on my own (full-on) blog, I can understand why micro-blogging is becoming the publishing medium of choice (Twitter probably being the ultimate proof in the pudding). With that in mind then, I’m definitely keen to develop a framework (and subsequently a set of tumblelog themes) for WordPress, but I’m also intrigued by the prospect of possibly porting these designs over to Tumblr.
What do you think? Would you prefer to use Tumblr or WordPress? And would you actually pay for such themes? The whole idea is still very new and undiscussed (even amongst the WooTeam) – so just give us your 2 cents… 
18 August 2009 at 9:19 am #
I love the idea. I built something like this before but it wasn’t that great. currently I power my site by tumblr.
18 August 2009 at 9:26 am #
Don’t you think that there are other WP themes out there that would mirror Tumblr’s functionality? Why did you decide to build a theme yourself and what didn’t work out?
18 August 2009 at 9:21 am #
I’ve been in the exact same situation. Was stuck whether to re-theme my wordpress blog or move to tumblr. In the end I moved to tumblr. Maybe it’s a lot less popular but it’s truly brilliant. I feel as if I want to post on my tumblr blog much more than I did my Wordpress blog.
My thoughts anyway!
18 August 2009 at 9:27 am #
Is that sustainable anyway? I mean, in the longer run would you actually post more on Tumblr than you would’ve on WP?
And if you could have a WP theme that mirrors Tumblr, would you move back to a self-hosted WP install (using this theme) or would you stick to Tumblr and the social networking capabilities of its network?
18 August 2009 at 3:57 pm #
Well yes, If someone had of made a tumblr style theme that I liked and thought was right yes, Defiantly. The only reason I moved was because I couldn’t find a theme that replicated tumblr well enough.
18 August 2009 at 9:21 am #
I think it’s a brilliant idea – and I’d prefer to see it in WordPress. (If I wanted a tumblr, I’d go get a tumblr, y’know?)
Now, that’s obviously because I prefer WordPress; I’ve tried to maintain a tumblr site in the past, but quickly lost interest. With WordPress, you’ve got much more flexibility for where you want to take it, imho. I can see the benefits in both directions, but I cast my vote in the WordPress direction.
18 August 2009 at 9:28 am #
Most definitely our thinking as well and if we were to do Tumblr themes / designs, they’d be in addition to their WP equivalents, which will always be the main focus.
18 August 2009 at 9:21 am #
My 2c: I don’t like Tumblr, I don’t like Tumblogs, and I definitely wouldn’t pay for a theme for one – though if I did like them, then I might.
IMO Tumblr is like the MySpace of the blogging world. It’s so easy, everyone can have one!
But is that your target market? You’re selling super high quality Wordpress themes to pro developers – and doing a great job of it. To my mind at least, they’re totally different markets. A professional market vs a consumer market.. I don’t think that they’d mix well.
Like I said though, just my opinion.
18 August 2009 at 9:30 am #
I hear you and yes, they are most definitely different target markets. But is that such a bad thing from a business perspective?
We’ve tried to release extremely well-designed and well-built WordPress themes on most popular niches (magazine, personal, news, business etc.) and are pushing some more of those boundaries now (with themes like Antisocial, Backstage etc.). So releasing a few tumblelog themes on the Woo-quality label, would be just another of those niches that we extend our awesomeness to, not?
18 August 2009 at 11:04 am #
Potentially yes – I certainly wouldn’t knock you for trying it, but it’s not something I could get excited about!
Now if EE EVER release v2.0 and we get some WooThemes ported to that.. there’s something I could get excited about
18 August 2009 at 12:36 pm #
Hell, I’d be excited if EE just decides to release 2.0… But yeah, from all the platforms that we’d like to release themes on, EE is probably the one we’re most excited about.
18 August 2009 at 1:02 pm #
I don’t mean to butt in, but I was talking to a developer friend of mine, and he made the point that while it’s great that you can make themes that design/developer types can take to bits and modify, there’s a whole audience out there who just want a gloriously sexy theme that works out of the box so they can get to posting the stuff they actually care about with the minimum amount of effort on their part.
If you can do the same for Tumblr themes (and I know you can), then why not? It makes sense to me, from a business point of view.
18 August 2009 at 5:11 pm #
I don’t think that is true … I think they are doing as well selling to end-consumers as well. I think there’s a very big market for the end consumers, and MANY of my clients right now are people that found/installed their own theme but they need a little php help to do some mods. IMO it’s a very good option for the Woo team.
18 August 2009 at 9:21 am #
i’ve been doing the very thing over on my tumbler custom theme – an infinite scroller horizontal scrolling quick blog – http://www.projectswebmedia.com – i have a way to go yet but the ability to rapidly update and have it ’stored’ somewhere is useful.
18 August 2009 at 9:27 am #
@Adii Why is it difficult to post to your own blog?
@Tom Weber Why do you feel like posting to your Tumblr blog more than your WordPress blog?
What’s that distinction?
Rahim
18 August 2009 at 9:41 am #
I think what their trying to say is that with Microblogging, it’s just bursts of thoughts. Unlike with WP, you have to sit down and think carefully of what to write about…
i dunno…
18 August 2009 at 9:46 am #
Thanks, Gino. I think I get it now.
Then Adii, what I would personally like to see is a full blog post/microblogging hybrid, kinda like http://ma.tt/.
Your thoughts?
18 August 2009 at 11:08 pm #
I like where Rahim is going with this.
Why does a space / property have to be 100% lengthy, well thought out blog posts -OR- Tumblr / twitter sized posts and thus the end user having to choose between their own separated themes?
Why not longer posts that go into detail along side shorter bursts of thought?
With 3rd party WP editors everywhere from desktop to mobile apps on an iPhone, let the end user choose the “type” of post.
I see this being more of a feature in a future WP release that might destroy any market there might be for premium pay tumblr themes.
If WP 2.9 had “burst-post” feature of 140 characters or less added to the back-end, it would be a feature every Woo Themes client would want updated into their theme of choice.
I would be less worried about satisfying a tumbler theme market than I would be about retrofitting all existing themes to handle a simple future WP feature add.
18 August 2009 at 9:30 am #
no 2 cents here… just quite interested in the idea, chief.
tumbler-ala-wp? must be cool..
18 August 2009 at 9:33 am #
I’ll show how uncool I must be. I’d never even heard of tumblr. My feeling is “Oh no, not one more thing to join and use.” Already have WP, FB, Twitter and probably more soon. Not sure I want to try and keep abreast of one more thing. Who knows though, I first thought Twitter was kind of dumb, but now I’m seeing the fun and usefulness.
18 August 2009 at 9:38 am #
It’s funny you wrote about this, because just yesterday I decided I want to incorporate Tumblr-like functionality in a new blog refresh I am working on. I too face the same problems mentioned. I often want a place to throw links/pictures/etc but don’t feel like it warrants a full blog post. Which then results in me posting them on Twitter/delicious/[insert web app here] – but I would still like to have them on my blog.
Personally, I really like how Matt pulls it off on his site http://ma.tt
He doesn’t have quite the media (pictures and videos) functionality that Tumblr has – BUT, he has his ‘full posts’ and his ‘quick posts’ which are essentially a link with a description.
I did a little research, and the two most helpful things to help achieve Tumblr like functionality in WP (no counting the theme hacks) is: http://web.twelvehorses.com/projects/quickpost/ and (of course) http://codex.wordpress.org/Press_This
Cheers
18 August 2009 at 9:48 am #
I’d love to see some Woo Themes on Tumblr. Not only is Tumblr quick and easy to post to, but it’s a hosted solution, meaning there’s no need to fiddle around with databases, WP upgrades etc.
I love WP but for some projects Tumblr would be a quick and easy alternative if there were some truly professional themes to choose from.
18 August 2009 at 9:52 am #
Adii,
I think its awesome you are exploring new platforms. I don’t have a Tumblr account, so this might be a stupid question – do you own the data you post to your account? I know the site says you can use your own domain, but this is much different than hosting it yourself. Does Tumblr allow you to export your posts? What if the service were to start charging for accounts or go under? What would happen to all your data?
Beside the functionality, ease of use and customization abilities, I love Wordpress because you host the site yourself and own all the data.
Thanks!
Chris
18 August 2009 at 9:57 am #
We’d love to have you, Adii!
There are a bunch of things you’ll probably dig about Tumblr. Check out this page for some inspiration: http://www.tumblr.com/why-tumblr
We’ve also been adding a lot of new functionality for theme designers (http://staff.tumblr.com/161470323), and we’d LOVE to see some Woo Themes ported.
Thanks for considering us. Email me if there’s anything I can help you with!
18 August 2009 at 12:34 pm #
Thanks for stopping by David and expect an e-mail from me pretty soon!
18 August 2009 at 10:08 am #
Here is my point of view. Few months ago I moved my personal blog from WordPress to TumblR for a simple reason: it is a lot easier to user, especially with my iPhone. The use you do of Tumblr is really different than WordPress and having microblogging themes for WordPress would not change the fact that a lot of people are using TumblR because it is really easy to use. You want to post a picture ? a video ? a quote ? Just press the right button and it is online !! WordPress is not made for easy posting.
TumblR has also a great iPhone app. Really easy to use again, you can post images in seconds, which is different with WordPress. So again, You don’t use TumblR the same wax than WordPress, and not for the same purposes. I am not sure I would come back to WP even if there were great themes, just because what I like with TumblR is not the themes but the functionalities, and how it is so simple to use.
Every TumblR user will tell you the same I think !
18 August 2009 at 10:13 am #
So would you say that TumblR is more of a personal, social media thing, or could this take the place of a full business WP blog?
18 August 2009 at 10:16 am #
Exactly, TUmblR is a real social media network, and a simple solution to post “quickly” pictures, videos and more, but it is really not done for business. Here again, the purpose is really different…
18 August 2009 at 10:24 am #
Yes, Adii, it’s sign of the times
With Twitter around, people are getting lazy to blog ‘good-serious’ content. It happens to everyone of us. However, daily we feel the need to post short snippets, messages, links, etc. Here’s where a tumblr like short posting functionality will be useful on our WP blogs.
The best example of this could be Magnus’s latest redesign. I guess a theme like jepson.no would be popular, only difference being that instead of the tweets on the right hand side, we would like our short posts [tubmlr like] & on the left hand side we would like to have our ‘long/serious content posted.
It could be as simple has displaying categories in different places. Say, have the ‘Daily’ category on RHS & the regular posts on LHS [wrf to jepson.no]
So, Yes! we would like to see WP themes with a tub,r like functionality & UI.
18 August 2009 at 12:33 pm #
I guess that means we’ll need to get Magnus to release a version of his homepage on WooThemes ASAP?
18 August 2009 at 1:25 pm #
WoW ! That would be great!
19 August 2009 at 12:16 am #
Defintely, I hadn’t seen it till reading Prashant’s post. Very nice Magnus.
My 2C (for what its worth). I believe people use tumblr because of its ease of use. If you can replicate that user experience within the wordpress admin (tumblr admin theme), iphone/web app or even desktop client I think it would work.
At the end of the day platform expansion is something that Woothemes should definitely be working towards, you have got to spread that woo awesomeness about. A good import facility from tumblr to WP would be essential. Look forward to seeing some of your famous teaser screenshots
18 August 2009 at 10:57 am #
Yeah, great idea. The strength of Tumblr to me is that the posts focus around one “type” of content – a quote, a photo, a writing passage, etc. It’s almost as if you would need a plugin for WordPress to emulate this behavior. I would also recommend you take a peek at Chyrp, an open source Tumblr clone in a way.
I think posting a single item of a type makes a lot of sense – almost more sense to our clients perhaps than straight-up blogging. But it might depend on the project.
18 August 2009 at 12:31 pm #
Thanks for recommending Chyrp; will definitely check it out whilst I’m doing research on emulating this on WordPress!
18 August 2009 at 11:02 am #
Why move to Tumblr if a theme can be created for WordPress blogs. I say go ahead and create more social themes for WordPress.
18 August 2009 at 11:03 am #
Because TumblR IS REALLY DIFFERENT than WordPress ! It is not only a simple version of a blogging platform ! You really need to try it and you will understand !
18 August 2009 at 12:26 pm #
I tend to agree… Tumblr itself is a social network, similar to Twitter, Flickr or Facebook. But hosting a blog or tumblelog on your own server creates it’s own niche, social network around that online property; so also not all too different.
18 August 2009 at 11:34 am #
The only difference I see in Tumblr, and I have tried it, is 1) it is hosted and 2) the post interface and management is much simpler. Obviously if you don’t want to host yourself than solutions like Tumblr or WordPress.com are great.
However, I don’t see any reason why a plugin could not be created that adds a simpler way to add posts to your blog that are content specific like Tumblr (ex. text, quote, photo, video, etc.) and makes it as easy as Tumblr to post that content to your WordPress blog.
Anything can be done if you know what you are doing with plugins. Tumblr has a fantastic simple interface for quickly posting to your Tumblr blog and there is no reason why this simplicity could not be replicated on WordPress.
18 August 2009 at 11:38 am #
That is true but I am not sure a theme will help using WP like TumblR, a plugin surely would help and a great iPhone App too !
But the idea is great !
But don’t forget that a lot of people use TumblR also for its social media features !
18 August 2009 at 12:29 pm #
Including that functionality within the tumblelog framework is ultimately something that I’d like to do. Initially though, I don’t see why a standard WP post + custom fields won’t do the trick. I guess however that it’s about ultimately simplifying that in accordance to the simplicity showcased on the front-end of a tumbelog’s design.
18 August 2009 at 12:33 pm #
I almost feel as if the backend has more to do with what makes Tumblr what it is than the front-end. Therefore I’m almost more likely to consider selling a client on an administration theme that “emulates Tumblr” than one for the front-end.
Have you ever considering developing administrative themes?!?
18 August 2009 at 12:37 pm #
I hear you… But that’s also probably the harder part of developing a tumblelog theme on WP…
And define administrative themes… Cos I have no idea what you mean…
18 August 2009 at 12:49 pm #
I just mean a theme for the /wp-admin/ area. My understanding (however slight) is that one can develop themes for that as well. When I think of Tumblr, I think of how well they’ve made a simple administration area that doesn’t distract you with lots of widgets and gizmos. It almost feels as if you’re writing directly into your blog, not from a separate area.
I wonder if you could develop a theme for Tumblr-style blogging that styled not only the front end but also the back end (/wp-admin/ area) as well.
18 August 2009 at 12:36 pm #
I use my tumblr account way more than my blog. There’s something wonderfully instant and easy about it, especially in the way they’ve designed the browser button so I can post something within seconds. I don’t have to think of anything to write, I can literally have it as a stream of consciousness – things I’ve found interesting or amusing or stuff I just like and want to share as I browse. I think, reading some of the posts above, that’s the ease of use that makes me keep using it, rather than my wordpress blog which I tend to put more effort into and be more aware of in terms of content. If that makes sense?
18 August 2009 at 12:39 pm #
Yep totally… I’m generating a lot more content on my Twitter stream these days (in comparison to my blog), simply because it’s easier and it only requires me to produce 140 characters at a time.
18 August 2009 at 12:45 pm #
A good chunk of my posts on Twitter come from my Tumblr. I really like the fact that I could share music via Blip, but they’ve nixed that for UK users, so I use twt.fm and Tumblr to share media on Twitter. That’s another nice little feature that makes it so easy to use.
18 August 2009 at 1:36 pm #
But the question we have ask is, where do the tweets go? If I sign out of twitter for a few days all those tweets are gone, but a blog post is around forever. If I do the right search I can come across someone’s post days, months, even years later.
18 August 2009 at 3:29 pm #
This is true. Which is why blog posts tend to take more time and thought. However, it depends on what you’re using Twitter for. I mainly use my Tumblr, and by extension, my Twitter, for posting things I’ve found online – an interesting site, a song, a video. In that way, it’s nice because it is instant. Liek a polaroid, it’s a brief capture of something interesting and then you move onto the next thing. I’ve found myself going back and blogging about something I’ve found later, but it’s nice to have it all in one place to share and go back to. With Tumblr, my archives are there. With Twitter, less so, but I use it less as a result.
18 August 2009 at 12:38 pm #
Does everyone here know about the “Press This” functionality inside WordPress to enable quick posting of links, videos, etc?
http://en.blog.wordpress.com/2008/08/14/press-this-bookmarklet/
Rahim
18 August 2009 at 12:43 pm #
Could work, but would need some tweaking.
18 August 2009 at 2:08 pm #
That looks interesting. (Kind of reminds of of Evernote) I don’t know though, copyright law bells started going off in my head on this thing if you are taking photos and text from other sites to re-pubulish. Even if you are giving a track-back.
18 August 2009 at 12:51 pm #
i would love to see some WOO themes for tumblr and if the price is right i’m sure you would sell a lot of theme licenses to regular tumblr users.
18 August 2009 at 1:17 pm #
I feel on a consumer level people don’t mind jumping from one social network to the other. Myspace > Facebook > Twitter etc. What I like about having my own personal wordpress installation is that it’s mine. I can integrate different social networks as they become popular and remove them when necessary. I don’t like the idea of forwarding my domain to the latest social network so I’m for incorporating tumblr like features in wordpress
18 August 2009 at 1:50 pm #
HHmmm….
I think it’s best to stick to what already works. Creating Tumblr styled themes is the solution, a lot of people are already comfortable using wordpress but dont have real blogging capabilities or content.
Scaling down and adding functionality to a theme to mimic Tumblr should not pose much of a problem. Especially for you guy’s at WOO !!
Have a super day, cheers everyone
18 August 2009 at 2:01 pm #
Tumblr is something I have very mixed emotions about — in that, I love, love, love the convenience, I love the ease of posting, I love the ability to reblog or “like” a fellow tumblr’s post, but I always feel hampered by the constraints of the platform. I go back and forth between trying to integrate the two systems into one site, moving to using Tumblr more or trying to build my own Tumblr solution.
My friend Nik (http://nikf.org/) has done a great job with his Tumblr page and uses it quite a lot. Here’s why this is important: Nik works for Realmac, a company that sells web design software. While you can build a Tumblr theme (the basis anyway) in Rapidweaver, you then have to hand-code all of the specific templating bits. So despite having design skills that far exceed what Tumblr’s target audience is, Nik still uses Tumblr because it is the best way to organize his thoughts.
I just wish they had a better permalink structure, that’s what holds me back.
As for you theme, if you can manage to make a Tumble theme work for WordPress, I say go for it. Unfortunately, the Press-This feature or whatever sucks ass and doesn’t really work. But if you could finesses WP to work more like a true Tumble blog, awesome. Otherwise, I’d say make a Tumblr theme.
18 August 2009 at 2:09 pm #
My two cents here, as a tumblr user…
I see many of you here are still either unfamiliar with tumblr, or using it for its easy posting functionnalities. I have to say tumblr is more than that, and more than a self-hosted blogging platform.
IMHO, the real differences with WordPress are the social features (followers, following), and the “reblog” options.
I’d be happy to hear the opinion of other tumblr users here, but I can already tell you that many of “us” do not actually check posts on the pages of the users we follow, but check them directly from our dashboard, a bit like twitter stream. On twitter you don’t go check adii’s page, all his tweets appear in your stream.
Then of course, it does not mean the design of your blog does not matter. People customize their twitter page even if their followers see it only once!
Another thing about tumblr is the “reblog” button, something that allows one single post to turn viral and appear all over the tumblr sphere, a bit like the twitter Retweet.
These two options (the reblog functionnality and the livestream of people you follow) make tumblr different than WordPress; Not better, not worse, just different. You wouldn’t compare twitter and WordPress, would you?
So Adii, I’d be really interested in a solution to port these two functionnalities to WordPress! Then I think tumblr users may turn to WordPress and your incredible themes.
But without that… You better turn to other platforms to distribute your great themes, there will be much more people willing to pay for it, in my opinion…
19 August 2009 at 7:53 am #
Hi Jeremy,
You make some valid points, I’ts getting me thinking, something I don’t often do
Maybe an app (plugin) for wordpress that could handle similar features might be useful.
Have A super Day.
18 August 2009 at 2:13 pm #
You want to clearly delineate between talking about simply “sprucing up” users’ current Tumblr pages with professional themes strictly as a design add-on and what I think you’re actually getting at which is making a self-hosted WP install perform more like Tumblr/Microblog.
Aside from your guys’ amazing design skills, I think the functionality you’re able to build into the WooTheme Dashboard within the WP Admin panel is where you’re going to shine. You guys could build the FUNCTIONALITY of Tumblr into a more-lifestream-like WP presentation and do work to offer even more value on top of what Tumblr offers.
18 August 2009 at 5:17 pm #
^^ This, all the way!
18 August 2009 at 3:24 pm #
Or better yet, come up with a WP plugin that pulls your Tumblr entries into Wordpress.
Meaning, use Wordpress for your occasional full blog post, and Tumblr for micro-blogging. But the plugin would at least allow you to show off everything under one roof.
I don’t want readers to have to jump through different sites to see my WP posts and Tumblr posts.
Then again, that might be a lot to ask since there isn’t currently a Tumblr integration WP plugin – which is probably saying something
Right now it’s pick or choose, one platform or another. :\
18 August 2009 at 3:57 pm #
That’s probably the best idea so your reader know where to get the main information.
19 August 2009 at 11:32 am #
That’s an absolutely awesome idea. I’ve been trying to find something that would do that for ages.
18 August 2009 at 4:45 pm #
After much vacillating over the years about this, here’s what I concluded:
Personal = Tumblr
Business/Moneymaker = WordPress
18 August 2009 at 5:02 pm #
@adii I think I sent you a tweet about this a little while back. Totally great idea! Nobody has done what you’ve proposed. Tumblr themes by WooThemes is money in the bank. Sure, there are a lot of free themes out there, but that applies to WordPress as well. http://tumblize.com has an amazing portfolio, but $999 per theme? I realize it’s totally custom, but come on, there’s a recession going on. LOL
18 August 2009 at 5:16 pm #
I like Tumblr as it is now, but I don’t see the longivity of it so I’d like to see those sort of features and capabilities in a WP site, yes.
I’d also be very interested in a mash-style theme, a la http://liferemix.net, maybe something that utilized a custom theme on the lifestream plugin.
18 August 2009 at 5:45 pm #
Part of what makes tumblr cool is you don’t have to format your posts much, if at all. Quotes have a style. Pics have a style. Vids have a style. You upload in to that category and they just look every time. No photo resizing, etc… the problem with WP and Joomla is that, ultimately, you still need to precision control your articles and posts.
If Woo had a WP theme that mirrored Tumblr for ‘ease-of-post’ -I’d be ALL over it.
18 August 2009 at 6:01 pm #
I will never use Tumblr, so no, I would not like to see a Tumblr theme of any kind. That would mean you guys would be spending your time on that instead of creating more awesome WP themes. But…your company is WOO themes not WP themes, so I would understand if you made one. I’d feel like the middle child, but I’d understand.
18 August 2009 at 6:13 pm #
Sounds to me like what people are wanting is not so much a Tumblr theme, but microblogging functionality like Tumblr inside WordPress.
So it sounds like people want a plugin first and a theme second. Of course, plugin + theme would be ideal.
Rahim
19 August 2009 at 11:50 am #
I’d love to see a quality thumbelog plugin/framework.
19 August 2009 at 6:31 pm #
I think it’s an awesome idea. Just as a quick (but related!) plug, we just implimented a Tumblr-like system on Digging Into Wordpress:
http://digwp.com
We can post regular posts of course, but also post Link posts. From the admin, these posts are just regular posts placed into the Links category and with a special custom field to the URL of the link.
From the front-end / template perspective, posts of this type are treated a bit differently. The design is different and the title of the post links to the source not the permalink.
In the RSS feed, the title also links to the permalink, not back to us.
I absolutely love it. When we link to something, we want to LINK to something, not link to ourselves and link back out.
20 August 2009 at 11:13 am #
Looks great and from what you have described, I’ve implemented something similar on http://adii.co.za!
20 August 2009 at 3:24 pm #
Looks great Adii! Is that going to be very similar to one that Woo releases?
21 August 2009 at 12:53 am #
Haven’t decided entirely… In fact adii.co.za was more of an experiment to wrap my head around the functionality that I’d like to include in a tumblelog theme.
24 August 2009 at 4:44 pm #
I would definitely buy a tumblelog-styled WordPress theme if you developed one. Tumblr’s cool but I want to be able to use my favorite WP plugins as well as host my own content. Plus WordPress is infinitely more extensible than Tumblr and has a great developer community behind it.
I think that what you’ve done with adii.co.za is a great start. I would like to see more distinct styling of the various post types, but what you’ve done is a step in the direction I was hoping for.
There are a few WP plugins out that would be helpful on the backend of a WP tumblelog. Flutter is WP plugin that can be used to create custom write panels for various post types. Twitter Tools would be helpful with cross-posting to Twitter. Plus there are lots of plugins that intergrate 3rd party services into WordPress.
Maybe you’d even consider building a tumblelog theme on top of the Carrington Theme Framework (which I think is a great start for building a WP tumblelog) or build your own framework.
I eagerly look forward to future tumblelog announcements.
26 August 2009 at 9:20 am #
@Chris Coyier
I’m looking for months for something like that on Wordpress. I want to make a ‘guide site’, so directly linking to source, with little description makes it easier.
What you described site http://www.metafilter.com/ has it, and it’s extremely popular. You can even guest post ( basically main site purpose), which can’t be done simple on Wordpress.
If someone would code similar framework like this for Wordpress I’m sure it would be a hit!
31 August 2009 at 9:09 am #
I have tried tumblr for almost a year now and this is my take on it: Tumblr, when I first started to use it, was about connecting people who post interesting or insightful content and it introduced me to a lot of creative people.
Then, about six months ago, they started using this “tumblarity” thing where you are awarded points with how popular you are. This is the kind of thing I wanted to stay away from. I don’t want a blog where I am forced to look at a popularity number and have doubts as to why my posts are not appreciated more. To say the least, it became very frustrating.
Wordpress is an entirely different system and much more to my liking since I can make it as small or as big as I wish.
Aside from that, tumblr is very easy to theme.
-Scott
31 August 2009 at 9:17 am #
One thing I would LOVE to see: a plugin that would allow your blog to be viewable in a simple format for cell phones. I am not sure how other sites recognize mobile phones, (I would love to learn,) but when I visit CNN on my iPhone, it automatically switches to http://www.m.cnn.com
If a theme was made where it could switch to a simple format for viewing on mobile phones, I would get that in a heartbeat!
5 September 2009 at 11:44 am #
Not to take any cash away from Adii Rockstar but there are lots of plugins already available that display a mobile version of WordPress sites. Check out some of them on this page:
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/search.php?q=mobile
31 August 2009 at 9:18 am #
Oops! Meant to just put http://m.cnn.com/ for the mobile “switch” example.
25 August 2009 at 1:01 am #
Thanks for the support!
And yeah, I built the current adii.co.za to test out some of the ideas I had with regards to functions / features I wanted to implement in a tumblelog theme. So that was just the first step; now I need to build on that and release something a little more generic for WooThemes purposes!