After borrowing Tumblr’s reblog feature, like feature and launching audio blogging to the masses, it looks like Automattic’s goal is to transform the WP.com community into a larger version of Tumblr.

At least it did today after WordPress announced their latest feature, dubbed “subscriptions.”

[T]oday we’re introducing a new subscriptions feature to WordPress.com. Subscriptions are an easy way to track and read posts across multiple blogs, all in once place. [...]

Let’s say you’re reading a blog on WordPress.com that you really enjoy — so much so you want to be notified when new posts are published so you remember to read them. You can subscribe to this blog really easily by using the “Subscribe” menu in the admin bar. By going up to your admin bar, and clicking “Subscribe to blog”, you’ll be instantly subscribed and all current and future posts will be added to the subscriptions tab on your WordPress.com home screen. (Official WordPress Blog)

This new feature looks eerily close to Tumblr’s “follow” feature, the latter who also displays blogs you follow within your dashboard.

While Tumblr isn’t completely innocent (after all they did steal Automattic’s mass post editor idea), it seems as if WordPress is attempting to avoid the same fate as Typepad who was recently eclipsed by its micro blogging rival.

Currently the only major difference between the two (from a non-geek’s perspective) is that Tumblr offers users free video uploading (albeit capped at 100 mb daily) while WordPress charges $60/year to experience video bliss.

Although its understandable why Automattic would incorporate this feature (as RSS has yet to become a mainstream affair), it does make one wonder if WordPress is secretly in love with Tumblr or secretly afraid of them (lets hope the former).