Social networking is branching out an an amazing rate. In the blogosphere many of the lengthy blog have been replaced by micro-blogs. A micro-blog is designed for short posts that often contain media like links, photos, movies and audio. More of a "Hey look what I saw" type post without a lot of need for more than a quick quip. Tumblr is a strong contender for this market. It's free and so simple to set up, yet hackable for those who like to tinker. And typically the screen area is smaller and fonts are larger than traditional blogs, so Tumlblogs display great on an iPhone in Safari.
There are currently four apps designed for posting to Tumblr directly from your iPhone. I like Tumble. It's free and allows for fast blogging and posting. The interface is extremely logical and simple. The opening screen gives you five options to post: text, quote, url, photo or the contents of a Tumblr chat. Tap one, a dedicated editor opens and your press the post button. Even simpler than posting through Tumblr itself. Once you've set your Tumblr username and password in Tumble for posting you won't have to fool with them again.
Currently there's no interface to see your posts or modify old posts. But this is simple enough to do through Safari. Save your Tumblr site or dashboard on your home screen next to Tumble and you'll have easy access to check out your posts. Here is my Tumblog of poems and drawings made on my iPhone with the Sketches app.
I like the simplicty and speed of Tumble so much, I kind of hope they don't integrate more complex features. Tumble had pretty near flawless fuction, so why mess with a good thing?
Tips
- Tumble is capable of sending html code. It's cumbersome to type tags so you probably won't do much of it. I tested emphasis and links.
