Despite popularizing the art of reblogging (or at least convincing WordPress, Typepad and LiveJournal of its worth), crediting the original author has (more or less) been an ugly affair on Tumblr.
Instead of ignoring the problem (something a few other platforms do) Tumblr has decided to skip the “requotes” and credit the original author instead.
Starting today, reblogging will no longer insert attribution into the content/caption of the post except to quote content added by the parent post.
This means we’re no longer cluttering up post content with reblog attribution. But where did it go? The Dashboard already attributes reblogs’ parent blogs, and now it automatically attributes the source blog clearly and consistently[.] (Tumblr Staff Blog)
Another benefit of Tumblr’s new approach to reblogging is that sites outside of Tumblr (or at least those credited within a post) receive proper attribution and attention minus the reblog distractions.
Tumblr’s approach is similar in many ways to Twitter’s native retweet, who made a similar move in November of 2009.
Unlike the twitterverse however, Tumblr’s new approach is receiving praise from the community (minus a few disgruntaled souls of course), and it will be interesting to see if other platforms copy Tumblr’s new approach to reblogging in the not so distant future.
(Image Credit: Tumblr Staff)
