In the last week or so, I have been hearing a lot about tumblelogs. The concept of the tumblelog has been around for quite a long time and I have seen many examples of sites that fit the bill. I have always liked the idea what is now called a tumblelog because the content is easily digestible and content is usually updated much more often. Ironically, this very blog has taken on tumbleblog-esque traits with smaller, daily posts to go along with a longer, more in depth weekly article.

What really interesting here is that there seems to be a trend moving in the short-format direction. In a sense, Twitter is the world’s large public tumblelog. This stream-of-consciousness style of writing is obviously less substantiative, but the format is quite beneficial in its own unique way to both the writer and reader. To the writer, with less time commitment for each post, there is more time to write many more articles during the same span of time. More topics can be covered and current events can be touched on much more quickly. For the readers, they can get the gist of potentially many different topics and then go elsewhere for more in-depth content if they so desire.

The differences in format between blogs and tumblelogs could potentially create a strong symbiotic relationship between the two. Long format, in-depth blog articles are always going to be necessary for readers to get a thorough understanding of a concept or opinion. Still, many people many not be willing to commit to such long articles for various reasons. Tumblelog formats have the potential to whet the appetite of an otherwise unwilling audience. I myself would like to incorporate even more small-format content into this blog – I mean, who has time to read my long, boring articles?