Ho‘ohana Aloha

So, Tumblr

I’ve kinda-sorta been following the news that Yahoo will buy Tumblr.

I’ve no opinion on whether or not it’s a good thing for everyone else, but selfishly, I think it’s a good thing for me. Yahoo has reach, I like how they’ve paid more attention to Flickr lately (the only Yahoo service I have ever used) and I simply figure that they’ll succeed in attracting more people to the Tumblr community, potentially making my Tumblr dashboard a lot more varied and interesting.

Looking back on it, my own Tumblr universe has always been about my dashboard.

If you read me on my Managing with Aloha blog, you know I recently posted something on my deliberations about Google Reader being discontinued, and Tumblr fits into the picture as well, because I have always thought of it as another RSS aggregator, and a kind of quirky one.

I read Tumblr way, WAY more than I publish to Tumblr, mostly because I’ve never really needed Tumblr for publishing, or even for lifestreaming: I already had my own sites (still do), so Tumblr’s been a diversion and a plaything - a place to take a break from working. In my current use of it, Tumblr is a place where I stumble upon the curious and interesting facets of impulsive and addicting subscriptions; Tumblr is off-my-beaten-path reading.

In whatever publishing I will do here,Tumblr’s been a place I can be less businesslike and more experimental. Again, usually playing, and strictly content-wise. I don’t tweak the design I have - I haven’t changed it in 6 years! - and I don’t obsess about who follows me, and what they might think. There are long stretches of time where my Tumblr posts are just photo shares, or continuations of whatever I couldn’t fit in 140 characters on Twitter.

I just looked up my very first post on Tumblr, done on 9:31am on Christmas morning, 2007 (which makes sense… I would have been playing then too!) and it was this quote from Liz Strauss:

“One day I’ll live on my own URL, then I’ll stream where I want to. Until then I’ll be floating away on Tumblr.”

Guess I’m happy to simply continue with my own floating, open to having others join me in the pool.

Try some diversion deliciousness. If you’ve never tried it before, click on a Tumblr tag and just see what comes up. Lately, I’ve been snooping around in the Tumblr #farming and #homesteading communities and meeting the most wonderful people there.

Defining my Why with RSS Reading

In 2 words, it’s my worldview relevance.

Clicked open the “Explore” part of my Google Reader this morning, and saw my own trends for the first time… just never clicked that part before:

From your 164 subscriptions, over the last 30 days you read 566 items, clicked 78 items, starred 6 items, shared 0 items, and emailed 0 items.

*As a bit of explanation: I don’t ‘share’ or ‘email’ from my Reader, for that’s essentially how I use Tumblr instead. However I think I should use those handy links more too, for the individual recommendations I’ll email people.

Pretty cool, this tracking by Google magic. It got me thinking about my habits, and how I read what I read. How much, how often and why. Especially since I’m newly using Goodreads to track my book reading (I’ve set a goal there to read 36 books in 2011, and am on my 6th and 7th- 1 fiction, 1 non-fiction).

“Read more books, and less other fluff stuff” is the advice we usually get, and I largely agree, for I do believe book reading is where the learning void deepens into this black hole for adults: There are far too many people who haven’t picked up a book to read since they were in school. I once had a manager ask me, “Why should I read old stuff when I see all the new stuff on the evening news?”

Yikes. Which brings me back to RSS reading. It’s not old versus new either: There’s a different distinction.

Books, for me, represent learning. RSS Reading culls relevance.

As much as I evangelize blogging, blogs represent quick, emotional publishing that’s very different from the writing and evolutionary editing patience necessary with writing a good book worth any reader’s time. When you buy a book, you expect to receive the value of that evolutionary edit.

So what’s the value of all those blogs in my Reader? I think of them as representing the pulse of my worldview laboratory. They hint to the simmering concerns and emotion swirling around me. And the “my worldview” distinction is an important one, for I’m the one responsible for creating my world.

And each RSS subscription has its own why too. As a writer, both of blogs and books, this is where my personal value of responsibility kicks in. If you subscribe to, or read anything I write, thank you. I promise I’ll do everything I can to keep honoring your attention, especially with constant diligence in positive expectancy.

Archive Aloha: Why is always a loaded question, isn’t it!