Tumblr takes aim at serious writers with 'big' update

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