Web Evolution – Tumblr

Tumblr made its first appearance on the web in early January of 2007, looking tragic through no fault of their own, and simply would not be considered a successful website today. Being that Tumblr has steadily remained a social blogging site, which is usually a natural and interactive 2.0 experience in itself, the transition from 1.0 to 2.0 isn’t exactly as prevalent as it would be on alternate sites. Nevertheless, there are a few key evolutions to take note of here. In 2007, Tumblr’s set up was wildly rudimentary, containing 3 simple links: Log In, Sign Up, and FAQ’s. Can’t get much better than that, right? WRONG. Tumblr began the initial redesigning of their home page in 2009 where the sign up form appeared as soon as the user came to the site, as well as a small set of descriptions that would take the user to a link where they could create their own html. This was still a pretty basic site, though, but maintained the average interaction expected from a blog. Onwards to 2011, Tumblr, oddly enough, had an opening to their site that didn’t initially offer the user to login, however, it presented the option of MOBILE blogging (woah!). The idea of mobile blogging capitalizes on the Web 2.0 aspect because it is centralized on user-generated content and usability. Last but certainly not least, jumping to the current Tumblr of 2016, you can see a beautifully crafted home page showing a backdrop with a feature from a blog. OK, so how is this 2.0? Well, the user, once signed in or not, could click on the small feature which would bring them to a blog that they could reblog from, reply to, follow, message etc. Each one of these characteristics are pertinent to the necessary interaction and collaboration of 2.0