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Tumbling Further
20. Oct, 2009 by Adii Rockstar in Development
Since posting our initial thoughts on tumblog (Tumblr-like) themes back in August, we’ve gotten a little busy with releasing all the new themes we had in the backlog. This is compounded by our #woobs charity & marketing campaign, which means that our lack of development capacity (this is why we’re hiring a new developer soon) results in us having to focus on the more important & time-sensitive things.
The good news is however that tumblog themes have not dropped off the radar and the future (which includes a very early, very sneaky preview of an upcoming tumblog design) is looking very good indeed (there are even rumours of an iPhone app to support our themes).
I’ve personally goofed around with some potential functionality for our first tumblog theme, whilst working away on my own site. So I intend on getting a little technical now, but here are some of my thoughts on functionality…
Media Types
The essence of a tumblog is its ability to support different media types (we will support: text, images, video, audio, links, quotes & dialogues / chats) and format the content according to those media types. For this to be effective, the WordPress theme needs to determine in some way what “type” of post you are adding. In my mind, we have the following options:
- Using categories or tags, which you can specify in the backend. This would mean that if a post has been published with a specific category or tag i.e. “Images”, the display format will be for an image as specified by the theme’s design;
- Adding an optional drop-down on post-level to (manually) select which type of post it is you’re publishing; or
- Developing the theme in an intelligent way i.e. if you’re embedding a video via our custom field, it will automatically be rendered as a video post by the theme.
Now it’s probably possible to use a combination of the above, but I’d think that the use of categories & tags makes the most sense. Using categories & tags would mean that you could access the archives for all “quotes” posts or all “video” posts, as they are linked to a specific category or tag (which you have specified in the theme options). This makes even more sense when you have a look at most tumblog designs, which are normally quite visually labelled with their media type to make navigation easier.
If we go that route, I’d also think that we should include a fallback in the case that the appropriate category or tag isn’t present. In this case, I think the drop-down select on post-level probably makes the most sense!?
QuickPress
This is something which we’re totally borrowing from Tumblr, but it is a must-have if we’re gonna be serious about our tumblog themes.
WordPress already includes QuickPress functionality, but we’d like to take those ideas a little further and develop a WooThemes Tumblog widget for your WP dashboard, to allow you to quickly post any type of content to your tumblog theme. With a little jQuery & AJAX magic, I’m sure we’ll be able to integrate something superbly usable & user-friendly; plus it maintains the spirit & principles of tumblogs in general.
Feedback
This is still early days yet for WooThemes tumblog themes, but we have quite a few ideas (as you’ve seen above) on how we’re going to pull this off. We would love however to hear what you think at this stage…
Are we missing some crucial functionality? In your ideal world, what would you like to see in our tumblog themes? Or is there any aspect of Tumblr themes that we can improve when we release our WP-equivalents? Fire away!
54 Responses to “Tumbling Further”
20 October 2009 at 8:33 am #
I’d do it, but price em cheaper. Maybe even convert some of your existing blogs into Tumblog themes?
20 October 2009 at 9:39 am #
We haven’t gotten as far as pricing the themes yet, but that will come with time. They may be cheaper, or we will consider using them with our 2-for-1 / 3-for-1 promo’s.
20 October 2009 at 8:33 am #
I’m confused about how you’re linking WP and Tumblr ?
Do you mean you’re making a theme for WP that replicated Tumblr functionality? Or you’re making a theme for Tumblr? Or you’re making 2 themes for both WP and Tumblr? Or you’re making something with Wordpress that posts TO Tumblr?
*confused*
20 October 2009 at 9:32 am #
Come on… It’s not *that* hard…
Initially we’re developing WordPress themes that replicate the functionality of Tumblr. Eventually we’d however like to release the same theme designs on Tumblr as well, but that is early days yet.
20 October 2009 at 9:39 am #
I am not sure you have many themes you could release for Tumblr as well. And I am not sure the market is worth it… what do you think ?
20 October 2009 at 3:06 pm #
Well, we’re obviously planning on releasing a whole new range of themes for tumblogs and maybe Tumblr. None of the existing themes will be ported, as none of them really fits the bill imo.
27 October 2009 at 1:10 pm #
A thought regarding the WP/Tumblr thing;
I like to use WP and Tumblr both and separate, mainly because I can use WP for longer articles and “meaningful” things (or… meaningfulER at least) while Tumbler is basically a more versatile version of twitter where I dump silly and fun stuff.
What I’d like to see if you peruse the idea of creating Tumblr themes is making themes that _complement_ your WP themes rather than copying them straight off. Tumblr has unique features, so does WP. I couldn’t imagine how a full port would work (I’ve tried with pretty bad results). But “paired” themes, working on the same general theme and philosophy that goes well together, now that would be something.
I’m all for consistency and having profiles on the net these days with WP/Tumblr/Twitter and god knows what in between is kinda annoying and messy, makes me feel all split without a common thread to keep myself together
21 October 2009 at 5:22 pm #
Ah ok – I get it now!
20 October 2009 at 8:37 am #
A widget would a great first step !
20 October 2009 at 9:33 am #
A widget for?
20 October 2009 at 9:37 am #
“WordPress already includes QuickPress functionality, but we’d like to take those ideas a little further and develop a WooThemes Tumblog widget for your WP dashboard, to allow you to quickly post any type of content to your tumblog theme”
20 October 2009 at 3:06 pm #
That may not be the start (as it’s a complex widget to develop), but it’s close to the top of our priority list.
20 October 2009 at 5:48 pm #
It’d be a fun one to work on!
21 October 2009 at 5:23 pm #
What are you trying to say?
20 October 2009 at 8:38 am #
Thought for a minute you were moving some themes over to tumblr. Now that’s something I’d like to see, rather than trying to duplicate the functionality in WordPress.
20 October 2009 at 9:33 am #
Well, we hope to do both and thus kill two birds with one stone!
20 October 2009 at 9:23 am #
Yeah, I’d vote for just making some sweet Tumblr themes. It’s an amazing platform that can definitely compliment any WordPress blog setup.
20 October 2009 at 9:32 am #
We’ve contacted the awesome team behind Tumblr to get their views on developing Tumblr themes. So this is a possibility for us; even though the immediate focus will be on developing WP themes that replicate Tumblr functionality.
20 October 2009 at 3:30 pm #
The only reason I mentioned it is because I came across these guys:
http://tumblize.com/
from
http://www.metalabdesign.com/
20 October 2009 at 3:31 pm #
And because $999 for a Tumblr theme, however sweet it may be, seems like easy money.
21 October 2009 at 5:24 pm #
$999 for a Tumblr theme = #areyoufreakingkiddingme
22 October 2009 at 12:49 am #
That’s $999 for a custom designed and coded theme… quite cheap if you ask any web designer.
28 October 2009 at 11:30 pm #
Well seeing as I’m a web designer, I’ll just ask myself and comment on that basis. #ohwaitIalreadydidthat
$999 is not cheap at all for a Tumblr theme – have you ever looked at the code behind one? It’s basically a static site with the simplest of simple loops that you don’t even create the markup for.
Essentially it’s a PSD to Html job with a couple of additional template tags.
29 October 2009 at 1:59 am #
Yep – I tend to agree with you here John. I’d be pretty happy to receive $999 for a Tumblr theme for clients.
29 October 2009 at 11:33 am #
A custom design from MetaLabs for $999 is quite reasonable in my mind. With a MetaLabs design your going to get recognition in site showcases and garner a bunch of traffic that will more than make up for the extra expense IMO.
I would consider $999 way over-priced if a average designer charged it, but Metalabs are not average they’re the some of the best Tumblog designers.
29 October 2009 at 11:39 am #
I agree about MetaLab. BUT $999 is still a nice fee for some design and a bit of coding work…
29 October 2009 at 11:46 am #
I think we cannot compare Tumblize that does UNIQUE themes for one customer. Ask any webdesigner to do a customed theme for you and you will see how much it does cost !!
Now, it may be expensive regarding to the code itself but not when you know that these guys do a really really great job on design, and that has a cost… $999 ? Don’t know but who cares if they make money ? You must understand that getting a theme from WooThemes for $40 is really cheap regarding to the price you would pay if you would hire a webdesigner ! 
20 October 2009 at 3:44 pm #
I absolutely love Meta Lab’s design work!
And i can tell you that our tumblog themes *won’t* cost $999 a pop…
20 October 2009 at 11:01 am #
Hello I’ve been searching for a theme like that for quit some time !! Hope it will come out soon Like the one you have Adii simple but very elegant the styling of different catagories very classy. and a little like the one over at thesevenfive blog.
What I would love to see is a possibility to get twitter like on thesevenfive blog theme not only a widget but more intergated into the posts somehow.
You might also include a way to post directly from the front end a bit like the P2 theme from automatic.
Anyway just my 2 cent ….
Sure you’ll make it wonderful really can’t wait !!
regards
20 October 2009 at 3:08 pm #
Looking into P2’s front-end posting capability is a great idea and definitely something that we’ll look into during development.
20 October 2009 at 12:17 pm #
The comments suggest people are missing the point slightly. There’s no point in making Tumblr themes – the point is to bring Tumblr-type funcionality to Wordpress, right?
One of the most important features of Tumblr is the reblog feature. Will that be replicated here? The other thing I love about Tumblr is the “share on tumblr” button for my browser – it makes it so quick and easy to post – it’s instant. I’ve tried doing the same with the “press this” option on Wordpress, but it’s not quite the same and still involves logging and such, and some formatting once I get in there. I may as well just log in properly and do the whole thing from the admin panel. If you could improve on that, it would be awesome.
I’m extremely interested in seeing what you come up with, since I’m a big Tumblr user.
20 October 2009 at 3:11 pm #
Well, we do plan to do both i.e. bring Tumblr-like themes to WordPress, but also take those new theme designs to Tumblr.
And unfortunately the re-blog / share on Tumblr features isn’t something that we can include, since that is dependent on having a community of users, which isn’t possible with standalone WP installs. This is however exactly why we’d like to release the themes on both platforms (Tumblr & WP) as both of them presents different great features and reasons to choose it over the other.
20 October 2009 at 12:51 pm #
Definitely excited to see this happening, but I have on question.
Are all your tumblog themes going to look like tumblogs?
I’d really like a tumblog theme suited for a AirLine site. I build allot of sites for AirLines and although I realize tumblog themes are designed for tumblogs can they be designed for non tumblog sites?
In other words are you planning on making any non-tumblog, tumblog themes? I’d like my tumblog without the tumblog look and feel, or even the tumblog features.
Hehe
Note: All bookworm comments are copyrighted and backed by a invisible entity with enormous wealth and resources so don’t re-post my comments anywhere. Also don’t take them seriously.
20 October 2009 at 3:16 pm #
Dude. You seriously almost had me there. I was reading the initial bit of the comment and thinking to myself “serious WTF mate”…
21 October 2009 at 1:25 am #
I personally would like something like this;
Take Meta-Morphosis. Use the left hand side like a Tumbler format, ie, “link, photo, video, link” classifications & on the right hand side use a lifestream like http://www.jepson.no The footer can have the usual widgets for categories, recent comments, tags, etc.
Now that would be a super cool thing to have!
21 October 2009 at 2:09 am #
Nice idea that to have a tumblog + lifestream combo. We’ll work on something!
21 October 2009 at 2:13 am #
GR8!! Looking 4ward 4 it.
21 October 2009 at 1:39 am #
About your original query;
Using categories or tags >> Many users might already have those categories with a long blog post in it, so that could be a problem, also they would already be using tags named as ‘images’, etc. So, it would be potentially confusing.
Best option would be a custom field.
IMHO, tumblr started for short blurbs/links/pics, the +ve part is the community angle, -ve is the subdomain.
Since WP can also support: text, images, video, audio, links, quotes & dialogues/chats, then I don’t see why it is any different [apart from the community thing]. In fact, if the UI is like a typical center aligned tumblr theme, many people would not notice the difference.
21 October 2009 at 2:10 am #
Re the categories / tags and / or custom field… Either way you’re going to have to re-classify your posts; albeit by adding a specific category / tag or setting up the custom field.
And yes; the only difference between Tumblr and WordPress tumblogs would be the community angle. That’s *if* we can replicate all of Tumblr’s best functionality of course…
21 October 2009 at 2:18 am #
“re-classify your posts” !! that would be tedious/impossible for older existing blogs. Maybe after changing over to the new tumblog theme, and adding selecting the custom field, then henceforth the posts would have labels, like “link, image, quotes etc”, that would be ideal, right? The older posts would remain as the were before, ie without any labels to them. Would this be possible?
“That’s *if* we can replicate” >> Woo Fans have all the faith in you! YES YOU CAN !
21 October 2009 at 2:25 am #
Yep, that’s basically how things will work. So posts from waay back will just stay unclassified.
21 October 2009 at 3:37 am #
ok..got it. No problems with that.
22 October 2009 at 8:07 am #
The only reason I’d consider using WP to power a tumblelog over tumblr or posterous is for data portability. In terms of functionality and the ease of streamlining a range of social media content to one space, posterous has the upper hand. Of the three platforms, WP definitely has a head start in terms of extensions. I hope you’ll be releasing your personal blog theme adii, it’s really slick.
22 October 2009 at 8:16 am #
Forgot to mention something on the issue of competing or copying or advancing the tumblelog form.
Rather than develop tumblr fucntionality in WP, I urge the Woo Crew to really take a long hard look at social media conditions and the direction of blogging and to consider the central themes raised in this post and its excellent discussion when developing your new tumblogs:
http://gigaom.com/2009/08/13/the-evolution-of-blogging/
If you can provide the evolution as opposed to the amelioration of the blogging platform, then you’ll be on to something. Tough call I know. But excellence has never been easy.
26 October 2009 at 1:30 am #
I have thought about these concepts a lot – about relying on other to host your content, about the cross posting between sites, etc. It’s mostly why I created my business-life lifestream site (linked below) … to make me in control of the consolidation of these things.
23 October 2009 at 11:24 am #
I think you guys should just keep doing what you’re doing. I don’t want to see the WP themes get neglected for other projects.
24 October 2009 at 4:28 am #
You don’t have the worry about that… WordPress is what WooThemes’ success has been built on until now and that’s not gonna change any time soon.
23 October 2009 at 1:57 pm #
Instead of doing straight up tags or categories, why not use a custom taxonomy or plan toward the WordPress inclusion of custom post types? My understanding is that 2.9 will include built-in functionality for custom post types beyond posts and pages, and that seems PERFECT for what you’re talking about. I’m sure I don’t know quite enough about these new features, but this idea of displaying posts differently based on the content was precisely what I thought of in reading the initial information on post types. Truthfully, I think if you can combine the tumblog/lifestream idea – showcasing different items from the stream a bit differently, you will have something WELL BEYOND a winning idea.
24 October 2009 at 4:37 am #
Some good points you have there… We might indeed have to wait for WP 2.9 before we move into this…
26 October 2009 at 1:19 am #
You know I recently messed around with Lifestream and made a “Twitter’d Lifestream” at http://www.nikolegipps.com …
That would be the sort of thing you’re looking at with WordPress, right? I could see this being done with categories … right now it’s changing the formatting of the post display using PHP based on the feed source (ie some excerpts are longer, some have an image, some have a link, etc). I could see this same thing being applied as categories, changing the display of the item based on the category of the post (image, link, etc) and then using tags along with it. Hmm, now that I think about it, maybe I’ll try playing around with the code of that, mashing together WP posts with the LifeStream posts to make my own “tumblog”. Am I giving you guys ideas?
26 October 2009 at 1:29 am #
This is looking great, but essentially it’s a lifestream and not entirely what we’re doing with tumblogs. There *may* be scope to do a Lifestream + Tumblog mashup, but in a sense that’s just content overload.
Lifestreams (imo) serves as a central space for interested parties to recap on all of your activity across many different platforms & social networks. Tumblogs are still geared to the creation of unique content and not just syndication or aggregation.
26 October 2009 at 1:51 am #
What I meant is that I could do the same thing on the site itself, instead of pulling from other sources … have my own mini posts that use PHP to change the display based on the category. That’s what you’re trying to do with the different posts types and the tumblog, right? You’d make a theme that changes with the category of the post – photo, text, link, etc?
Adding feeds or commentary on other things with the links, well that’s just my own addition because I write in so many places that I wanted to combine it. So I’d like to see what you come up with for tumblog-type themes, and then to see if I can add the other things I want to add to it.
What it seems like to me, the concept I would want to see, is the Facebook wall before FB went and messed it up – the thing on my company page that combined photos, videos, updates, links, etc. The big difference here is seeing it as a standalone product, not worrying about the confines of another 3rd party vendor to keep it going at their own whims.
26 October 2009 at 2:27 am #
Oh yeah… That’s exactly what we’ll be doing. Even though I’m leaning towards using the new custom post type functionality in WP 2.9…
3 November 2009 at 11:12 am #
I’m a big fan of the tumblelog look, and will take some time to get more familiar with the functionality. When is 2.9 going to be released if the themes are going to be linked to it’s timeline? What’s Woo’s position on upgrading other themes to take advantage of 2.9 features?