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WordPress Copies Tumblr

WordPress Copies Tumblr

Apparently Typepad wasn’t the only blog company with a serious case of Tumblr envy.
It looks as if WordPress is releasing “reblog” and “like” features across its WP.com platform, enabling users to repost snippets of blogs they stumble across with a link back to the original post.
Today we’re introducing a new like and reblog feature enabled across the whole of WordPress.com. […]
If you decide that you want to share the post with your own readers, you can click the “Reblog this post” link and you’ll be taken to the new QuickPress tab on the WordPress.com home page. This will auto-fill a snippet of the post text, a link back to the original post, and a link to the blog. If the post includes any images we’ll also automatically add a thumbnail image to the reblog post. Finally you can add your own comments to the reblog post then select which blog you’d like to post it to (if you have more than one). (Official WordPress Blog)
WordPress is probably launching this feature in order to counter the rise of Tumblr, a service that blurs the line between a micro blog (like Twitter) and a full featured blogging platform.
Thus far, Blogger has avoided the reblog feature, although BlogSpot fans and WP.org guru’s can imitate the reblog feature via Zemanta (who also has a WP plugin), although it may not be as smooth as WordPress’s implementation.
While mimicking may help convince a few users to stay within the walls of WordPress, users may still defect towards the micro blogging company as Tumblr offers users 100 mb of daily video space without charging them a dime.
View Comments (6)
  • Today I awoke to this announcement and was horrified. I don’t normally curse but when I saw this I swore like a sailor. Do not need! Do not want! This copy-cat from Tumblr feature has been provided by wordpress.com and there is no provision for opting out. The only other feature we have that we cannot opt out of is the global tagging. What would be acceptable to me is to have a provision for opting out.

    I come from a ranching background and we have a saying “all hat – no cattle”. What’s next “fake ranching”?

  • This feature can easily be misused to create huge amount of reblogged contents. And we do not need such a feature when a lot other options are already there for feedback and to increase blog reach.

  • It’s a pity that companies can no longer innovate on their terms and have to resort to copying other companies’ ideas. We definitely don’t need to add a reblog feature to WordPress, nor another Tumblr floating around. I wish WordPress would focus on improving their engine to maximize speed and stability.

  • I think it’s actually a great thing! Think about it: in every other medium/society/community, collaboration is the way forward. Great ideas get re-purposed, used, fine-tuned and refined. Bad ideas tend to get flop and get superseded. The same thing is happening here!

    I think it’s great to be able to instantly pull in others’ blog entries into your own as references! It encourages sharing and collaboration all the more.

    Also, this means that both companies will be driven to innovate because at the end of the day, yes WP might have ‘copied’ Tumblr, but we all know Tumblr did it first!

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