Skip to main content

How to use Tumblr as a Google Reader shared items substitute

The social sharing world has seemed bleak for those of us who found the shared items in Google Reader to be the single best place to read and discuss the news. But I've found a little light lately in turning to Tumblr as a way to share links and pictures and allow discussion on said articles.

It's easy to set up. Get a Tumblr in shape and then:
  1. Add Tumblr to the Send To button (Reader Settings > Send To). This will take the place of the "Share with note" functionality.
  2. Go get the "Share on Tumblr" bookmarklet at the Tumblr Goodies page. This will let you share any article you find. 
  3. To get the commenting experience, sign up for Disqus, create a new site and then enter the shortcode into your Tumblr.
Those things will let you share to Tumblr as easily as you did to Reader. 

Of course, Tumblr still pales in comparison to Reader, if only because Reader allowed you to have all shared articles AND comments in the same place where you were reading your usual articles. And one of the great things about Reader is that you were usually able to read the entire article without having to leave Reader. But it still scratches that sharing itch, and adds in features that you couldn't get in Reader shared items, like Analytics and the ability to connect external services like Instagram.

As a side note, I've been liking Tumblr a lot, but there's still room for improvement. A better dashboard is sorely needed, the text editor needs a larger window space, and although the templates are among the best of the free blogging platforms, a lot of them are unpredictable and buggy. But I've been liking the ease of posting and ability to customize template enough so that I've started considering moving this blog to Tumblr.

UPDATED to put in the part about adding in your Disqus to allow commenting. An essential part!
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why are we still judging work done by time spent?

Every morning, when I fill in the hours on my work's electronic timesheet, I'm struck by how odd it is that we're still judging our work by the time spent on it. It's odd because it's old-fashioned. In the paper and phone world, you could really only do work when you were at work. But we do work all the time now. I check my email when I first wake up. Does that mean I start my day at 6:30 am? Should that be reflected on my timesheet? How about when I respond to an email or check Basecamp when I'm on the bus? Does my work day start then? How about when I look at Google Analytics at night or think about email newsletters when I'm in the shower (which I'm somewhat ashamed to admit I did this morning)? On the other side, if someone finishes the work that they're meant to do, why should they feel like they need to stay at work until 5:00, just because that's the official time of the work day? I don't think anyone would argue that time spent ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Some scattered thoughts on the money of digital music

If you haven't already read Digital Audio Insider's interview with Camper Van Beethoven's Jonathan Segal ¹, it's a must read for anyone with even a slight interest in digital music and the money of the industry. Segal has tons of thoughts on just about every aspect of digital music, but best of all, he brings in these thoughts as someone whose initial music industry experience was in the days of purely-physical media, when "pirating" meant copying something onto a blank tape. My main takeway is general and obvious but an important reminder: we are in a transition time for music, and what it will become is anyone's guess. I think Segal's take on merchandise and live performances taking the place as artist's primary source of income as "asinine" is too harsh to be true, but I do think that we're in such a state of transition that any shot at predicting artistic income in the future is completely in the dark. Such predictions are really ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Sentiment Measurement Beyond Metrics

You know, headlines like that one really put me on the fence, balancing between "Ooh! Metrics!" and "Wow, no wonder people think it's boring and geeky." ANYWAY...today I'm definitely in the former camp, in the sense that it's exciting because it's a philosophical puzzle: how can you solve a problem that can never really be solved? Yesterday, I commented on Avinash Kaushik's post where he asked, "If you were to measure the success of a company’s social media efforts how would you do it?" My answer: For social media, the obvious metrics still hold: referrals and conversions from referrals. But being from a nonprofit background, where the higher-ups are often skeptical of social media, the real metrics are the words. There’s nothing more valuable than the tweet that says "I love that {your org} is on Twitter" or the time you respond to a comment on Facebook addressing a wide concern about your organization or when you comment ...
Post a Comment
Read more