
Tumblr began rolling out a major update on Wednesday that makes it more appealing to serious writers.
While
the blogging service remains hugely popular, with 420 million active
users and 220 million blogs, many of its posts are only bits of text and
media — abbreviated flotsam and jetsam — including celebrity quotes,
animated GIFs, dog photos and so on.
But
the latest Tumblr update cleans up its overall look, and introduces new
tools, including a text editor that puts a heavy emphasis on writing.
"Whatever you want to write — simple things, flashy things, handsome
things, trashy things — now you can write the hell out of it," the
company wrote in a post.
For
Tumblr, the move signals a serious attempt to capture lovers of
long-form writing, in addition to its core audience. Medium, another
online publishing platform launched in 2012 by Twitter cofounders Ev
Williams and Biz Stone, garnered attention for its clean, minimalist
interface and hires such as ex-Wired senior writer Steven Levy. (Levy
now runs a tech-focused publication on Medium called Backchannel.)
With
17 million visitors each month, Medium's user base is a fraction of
Tumblr's, but it's clear that Tumblr is paying close attention to the
upstart. Some tech bloggers have already pointed out that Tumblr's new
text editor strongly resembles Medium's. But don't take our word for it —
see for yourself:
Posted by : Gizmeon
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