Tumblr Staff (Posts tagged features)

Tumblr Domains: That thing you do in the place they already know

Hello, [tumblr]. Look at you all here vibing. Some of you are out here providing essential services, like making art—and people happy in the process. Maybe you’re creating pfps for your followers. Or painting people’s OCs in intricate and enlightening detail. Or taking beautiful pictures of mushrooms. Or sharing your homestead life with the world. Or coming up with entire ARG universes for your followers to immerse themselves in. Maybe you’re making memes for that one show that existed for fifteen seasons and stopped airing years ago. Perhaps you’re simply fulfilling the age-old societal need of staying silly :3. Whatever it is you come here to do, why not make it official and claim your domain? 

Having a domain can add a little professional gleam to your online presence. It can be a funny little joke from you to you. It can also add an extra layer of this-is-what-this-is to your online persona. 

blog.tumblr.com will remain free for everyone.

Here’s how you get your very own slice of the internet, right here on Tumblr:

• Click on your account icon and select “Domains” from the drop-down.
• Register your info, pop in your payment details, and hey presto. You’re now an official Tumblr citizen. 
• If you already have a custom domain purchased elsewhere, it’ll continue to work for now, but you will no longer be able to connect a new custom domain bought elsewhere to your blog.
• Eventually, we will implement domain transfers (outbound and inbound) and paid domain connection.

And, to celebrate this historic moment, we’ve got a little offer for those interested in a .blog domain: 

• First year (through to July 31): $3.00
• First year (from August 1 – December 31): $5.00
• Annual Renewal: $10.00

Curious about other available domains? Check ‘em out here. More questions? The Support page has all the details!

Make it official, merge your online homes, and bring your Tumblr family along for the ride. 

Want to communicate, at a glance, something essential about your Tumblrsona? Were you here for Goncharov and lived to tell the tale? Or perhaps you love a lovable but ultimately quite useless anthropomorphic piece of office hardware. Or you’re one of those illustrious Artists on Tumblr, and you’re open for business.

Well then, this one’s for you. Introducing: badges. Ta-da! Yes, that’s right. They’re finally here. You can currently choose from three (with more to follow soon): Goncharov Enthusiast, Coppy, and Commissions Open.

Here’s how you get ‘em:

• Head to TumblrMart or your blog settings to purchase your desired badge(s) for your primary or secondary blog.
• Equip your newly-acquired badge(s) from that blog’s settings. 
• Enjoy the sight of your nice new badge prominently displayed on your blog and next to your username on the dashboard.
• Badge-level settings: By default, badges will be visible on your profile and the dashboard. You can choose to hide them in your blog’s appearance settings. 

Every badge is a badge of honor here. Yes, even Coppy.

Let the games begin.

Well. Well, well, well, well, well. It’s here. The day has finally come. We’ve enjoyed witnessing you set dashboards ablaze the world over with your fandom hot takes, your cats, your dragon art, your recipe polls, your incorrect quotes, your Barbie memes. (But, really, mostly your cats.)

Starting April 20, you will be able to Blaze each other’s posts: You’ll be able to scroll through your dash and see a post that tickles you, and then make thousands of complete strangers see that post also. 

We made this for fun, but you remain in charge of your stuff. So here are some important details:

• Blog-level settings: All blogs will be set to Blazable by default in your blog settings. We’re giving you this heads-up so you can toggle Blaze off on any blog you don’t want people to Blaze posts from (quick link for web). Remember to do so for any secondaries you might want to keep Blaze-free. 

• Post-level settings: These override your blog-level Blaze settings. You can enable Blaze in the post editor—before or after posting—via the cog (web) or the meatball menu (mobile), regardless of your blog’s Blaze settings. Any posts you previously disabled reblogs on will remain unsharable via Blaze. Unless, of course, you edit the post to enable Blaze.

• Real humans moderate all posts being Blazed before they go out. If something’s fishy or seems like it might be harmful, it won’t go through.
• When someone Blazes your post, you will receive an email, push notification, and/or activity item (depending on your settings). 
• You can cancel the Blazing of your post before it happens—or extinguish a post that is already being Blazed—either by responding to the aforementioned notification, or via the “Active” tab in your Blaze interface. 
• We will only accept posts that comply with our global advertising guidelines. Interested in advertising directly? Find out more here.
• Here are some FAQs.

So that’s it, really. Be nice! Have fun! 

And, as always, if you want to get in touch, drop us a line on @wip or Support, and keep an eye out for more updates on @changes. 

Hello, Tumblr. 

If you joined us before November 2022 and predominantly post on web, you will be familiar with the two post editors—the legacy editor and the “new” web editor (formerly known as the “Beta editor”).

Beginning May 15, we’ll gradually be working to remove the legacy editor as an option for creating new posts. New posts created on web will be created in the new web editor. We hope to complete this change by July 15. 

• This change only affects accounts created before November 2022. Newer accounts already default to the new web editor.
• This will not affect posting on the apps because we switched to this new editor on the apps about four years ago. If you use the apps, you’ve been using the new editor all this time!
• This will not affect what you can include in a post, only how you get there: You can still include all the different types of media in a post, only now, you’ll do that via the new web editor’s content blocks instead of selecting a post type from the post type bar at the top of your dash. So, if you’re halfway through a text post, and you decide that what this post really needs is your pet reptile, then click on the little red image icon in the post editor, select an image, and voilà. Lizard boy steals our hearts.

If you still prefer to post on web using the legacy editor, please keep reading because the rest of this post is for you.

Keep reading

We heard you.

Recently, we experimented with swapping out the locations of the profile and TumblrMart icons in the iOS app. We monitored your feedback through your posts, questions to @wip, comments and reblogs on @changes and @emporium posts, and so on. You didn’t like the update, so we’ve changed it back.

We heard you loud and clear. The profile icon has returned to the lower right corner of your iOS app.

This change was originally intended to inform you about the new features we are releasing to help Tumblr move toward profitability. However, we recognize that this was too big a change to how many of you use Tumblr on iOS. You are Tumblr. You’re the most important voice in the room, and we hear you.

We know this has been frustrating for many of you. To thank you for being patient and understanding, we’re offering this coupon code for items in the Tumblr Shop: use code OURBAD for 10% off on all products here. You can also use code OURBAD on all digital TumblrMart products except Ad-Free when purchasing on web. This code can be used once and is good for a limited time.

Thanks as always for your feedback, [tumblr].

ALT

Horse Friend is now available on iOS and Android. To celebrate that Horse Friend is now available on iOS and Android, Horse Friend wrote you this poem.

That’s right, folks. You can now bring your very own Confunglius Brango* to school, to work, or even to the movies. We won’t judge. Just tap here, or on that little shop icon on the lower right corner of your screen, and buy yourself the most wonderful gift of all—the gift of friendship with a virtual horse.

You can also give the gift of the prolific pooper to all your friends. A pony for every pocket. Magic.

*Names may—neigh—WILL vary.

Hello, Tumblr. Tumblr Live is coming to your desktop computers. If you’re in the US, you can now both stream and watch on web.

Tumblr Live on web means you’ll be able to use streaming software to share your screen on a stream. OBS (open broadcaster software), for example, enables you to stream to specific locations using multiple inputs like your webcam and a virtual camera—think side-by-side face cam and screen recording on a gaming stream. Having OBS integration really blows open a world of possibilities for Tumblr Live. Learn more about hosting a stream using OBS here. 

Your ballpit awaits! What will you stream? Furby lengthening lessons? The Last of Us Pt. 1 replay? The Locked Tomb book club? Frog costume felting? Zhongli live draw? The Sims Seinfeld reenactment?

Hello, esteemed Important Internet People. You will by now have noticed the change in your Important Internet Checkmarks. That’s right, they’re now important in every color of the rainbow.

Just popping in here to let you know that you can now also gift Important Internet Checkmarks to all your Important Internet Friends. It is important to us that you know this. Hence this missive. Have a good day. (And give the gift of Internet Importance. You probably won’t regret it.)

Twitter’s API changes

Hello, Tumblr. Twitter unexpectedly announced they will end free access to the Twitter API (Application Programming Interface) on February 9th. A recent update had extended that date to today, February 13th, 2023. 

What’s an API?

Put simply, APIs define how programming systems interact with one another. For example, an API allows third parties (say, a social media platform) to interact with another website programmatically (to publish posts, etc.)

How does this affect Tumblr?

We are removing the feature that links a Twitter account to your Tumblr. This will end the ability to automatically share your new posts directly from Tumblr to Twitter when they are published. This will also remove the ability to automatically display recent tweets in your blog’s theme. This change will immediately affect web, Android, and iOS.

We appreciate this will be frustrating for many users, but all is not lost—you will still be able to share any Tumblr post to Twitter manually using the normal share option on web. For Android and iOS, you will need to have the Twitter app installed to manually share Tumblr posts on Twitter. This functionality is expected for both platforms in upcoming app versions.