In the left corner, the blog platform weighing in at 15 billion monthly pageviews, and in the right, the social photo sharing site with 11 million monthly pageviews. (In case you don't know, here is a good intro to Pinterest.) They seem pretty different right? Wrong.
Well, kind of wrong. Tumblr is still a blogging platform - as much as you can use it as a loose collection of inspiration it still vaguely resembles a blog - while Pinterest is most definitely a photo sharing/inspiration site. They definitely do compete though - lots of people use Tumblr like Pinterest, as a place to collect hundreds of images for inspiration, categories with tags. They also "ReBlog" like crazy (duplicate another users' posts quickly and easily,) which is identical to Pinterest's "RePin" feature. They might use the more traditional blogging features occasionally - but they could deal without them. I kind of fit into this category.
Pinterest knocks Tumblr out of the park when it comes to posting an image from somewhere else online - where most people find their content. They both have bookmarklets to share content, but Tumblr's is hidden away whereas you are prompted to use Pinterest's. Tumblr's bookmarklet is powerful - and can share much more than just images - but is kind of cumbersome, as in, to make sure I am posting the right image I always have to right-click get image url, then paste that in before typing in my tag. Pinterest's bookmarklet only picks out large images so I can just click the picture I want - and I can choose what category (essentially the same as a tag) to use from a dropdown menu. It definitely makes socially sharing an image much easier.
It kind of feels like Pinterest saw what people were using Tumblr for and decided to strip it down and do it better. Tumblr will take anything you throw at it - pictures, video, quotes, text, links, photosets - Pinterest will take pictures and kind of video. Tumblr encourages user-generated content, and lots of people use Tumblrs as their portfolios or personal photoblogs; Pinterest states that it is not all a self-promotion tool. Tumblr lets you change your theme completely - until your blog is so far removed from a Tumblr blog the only thing that gives it away is the top right follow button - whereas Pinterest has a nice default grid design (reminds me of the Tumblr Archive) that you can't change.
Currently I use both, but I'm late to the game with Pinterest, and mostly use Tumblr. This is partly comfort, partly that I do enjoy the traditional blogging features, and partly that all my friends use Tumblr and I have invested a lot of time into the 6140 posts on my Tumblr. I think there is space for these sites to coexist, but they are definitely competing on some levels. I don't have the space to compare some other aspects - how Pinterest drives wishlist/purchasing and how it is apparently just for girls, and how different each site's dashboard is - but they are definitely important.
Which do you prefer?
Well, kind of wrong. Tumblr is still a blogging platform - as much as you can use it as a loose collection of inspiration it still vaguely resembles a blog - while Pinterest is most definitely a photo sharing/inspiration site. They definitely do compete though - lots of people use Tumblr like Pinterest, as a place to collect hundreds of images for inspiration, categories with tags. They also "ReBlog" like crazy (duplicate another users' posts quickly and easily,) which is identical to Pinterest's "RePin" feature. They might use the more traditional blogging features occasionally - but they could deal without them. I kind of fit into this category.
Pinterest knocks Tumblr out of the park when it comes to posting an image from somewhere else online - where most people find their content. They both have bookmarklets to share content, but Tumblr's is hidden away whereas you are prompted to use Pinterest's. Tumblr's bookmarklet is powerful - and can share much more than just images - but is kind of cumbersome, as in, to make sure I am posting the right image I always have to right-click get image url, then paste that in before typing in my tag. Pinterest's bookmarklet only picks out large images so I can just click the picture I want - and I can choose what category (essentially the same as a tag) to use from a dropdown menu. It definitely makes socially sharing an image much easier.
It kind of feels like Pinterest saw what people were using Tumblr for and decided to strip it down and do it better. Tumblr will take anything you throw at it - pictures, video, quotes, text, links, photosets - Pinterest will take pictures and kind of video. Tumblr encourages user-generated content, and lots of people use Tumblrs as their portfolios or personal photoblogs; Pinterest states that it is not all a self-promotion tool. Tumblr lets you change your theme completely - until your blog is so far removed from a Tumblr blog the only thing that gives it away is the top right follow button - whereas Pinterest has a nice default grid design (reminds me of the Tumblr Archive) that you can't change.
Currently I use both, but I'm late to the game with Pinterest, and mostly use Tumblr. This is partly comfort, partly that I do enjoy the traditional blogging features, and partly that all my friends use Tumblr and I have invested a lot of time into the 6140 posts on my Tumblr. I think there is space for these sites to coexist, but they are definitely competing on some levels. I don't have the space to compare some other aspects - how Pinterest drives wishlist/purchasing and how it is apparently just for girls, and how different each site's dashboard is - but they are definitely important.
Which do you prefer?
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