Hello again, Tumblr. Labs division here!
A while back, we announced our comeback as a new team that would imagine big ideas for Tumblr—and would build them in public (aka with you). We recently announced our first failure, and today we're very excited to announce our first possible success!
As we've said before, an essential part of how we're working in Labs is speaking to people who use Tumblr pretty much on a daily basis and those who don’t use it at all.
In those interviews and focus groups, we learned that curating the Tumblr experience around different interests and fandoms is a big part of making Tumblr feel like your own space — and one of the main ways you do that is through blogs and tags (be it following or creating them).
So here at Labs we're working on ideas to help you curate the content you care about, and to help share what makes your experience fun with other people, even if they are not on Tumblr already.
Have you ever put together a song playlist to listen to when you're in a certain mood, or share with a specific friend? Or sent them books you know they'll love? Now imagine if you could do that with blogs and tags on Tumblr…
Maybe you're a veteran in a fandom and have the best recommendations of who to follow for your followers. Or your best friend won't join Tumblr because they don't know that their favorite TV show is actually really popular here. Or maybe you want to curate and browse content from a specific fandom, or a group of your mutuals, your own way.
That's the idea behind Collections!
You can check out that example collection on the web here!
The first way we're testing Collections is by inviting some of you to create your own and share with followers and friends—they'll be able to follow all the blogs and tags in your collections. So we're looking for volunteers!
You want to help? Great! Here's what you need to do:
Come up with your own Collections of blogs and tags, write it down somewhere. Focus on introducing people to Tumblr or recommending stuff to your followers. What would you want them to first see on your version of Tumblr?
Come up with a name, cover image, and description for it. Also try to think of who you would send your collection to, and where you might post about it.
Write out that idea as a reply or reblog on this post!
We’ll give it a few days, and pick a handful of people to play with Collections. We'll let you know. Then we’re off to the races!
If you decide to participate (and get selected), please note that this early release won’t work on the apps yet, only in your web browser.
Our goal is to keep working on improving and adding Collection functionalities while you test what we've built (and share your feedback with us).
Next we’re exploring making a collection something you can follow on Tumblr, as a way to curate Tumblr around your many interests and moods, and to give you more freedom to curate content on your dashboard.
And if this idea is not for you, remember we have many more experiments in progress, so stay tuned!
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