A new question and answer feature is slowly being rolled out by the Tumblr team. We first spotted this feature on Jacob Bijani’s (Tumblr’s creative director) tumble log. Since then, the feature has been rolled out to a number of Tumblr users. However, there is still no date when the rest of its users will see this feature enabled.

With this new feature any text post can also become a question. By checking off “Let people answer this” an answer form will display in both the dashboard stream and tumblelog and in either area a small form will appear. This form will allow users to provide answers to the question which will also be stored as notes for the post.

For those who have not already added a comment system, this is a great way to get feedback or collaborate with other users on Tumblr.

Where are the premium services?

Tumblr has a lot of work ahead of them. Both Twitter and Tumblr hinted at business models in early 2009. Twitter is making good on their part – kind of – with the release of a variety of new features and non-paid ad spots starting to display in profiles. Tumblr, on the other hand, hasn’t shown any signs of launching their premium services which were hinted at after taking additional funding late last year. Tumblr’s new answers features seems to be slowly rolling out to users so what else does the Tumblr team have in their sandbox?

Have you spotted any additional features in the Tumblr sandbox? Shoot us a note to our tip line (tips [at] microblink [dot] com) or leave us a comment below.

(images via robotindisguise)

I just sat down to type out a quick blog post about a new Tumblr service I recently discovered only to realize that they are already closing up shop. 48 hours after launching TumblRSS the service is being turned off per request of the Tumblr team.

TumblRSS was created by Tim Borman and provided a RSS feed for the Tumblr dashboard through a method called screen scraping. The choice for screen scraping was largely due to the fact that Tumblr’s API poorly addresses options for reading posts from those you are following.

Its rapid and near overnight success tells us that users want more options for following other tumblelogs. Hopefully now that a service like TumblRSS has proven the demand Tumblr will start making tools available and continue to build out their API.

As for Tim and TumblRSS it looks like he will be meeting with the Tumblr team to discuss options however he already noted on his site that he has a couple of ideas on how to get his service up and running again.

Tumblrette was a fantastic and stylish Tumblr app for the iPhone or iPod Touch. It was well received by the community and even featured on Tumblr’s goodies page. So it was no surprise when Tumblr announced that they are working with Mobelux, the original developers, and relaunching the application as the official Tumblr iPhone App.

From Mobelux’s blog post they clarify this as Tumblr has purchased Tumblrette and they will continue to work with Tumblr to develop the next round of features for the rebranded application.

With the relaunch several changes have already been implemented. The most significant of these changes is the native dashboard. This was the only feature that I felt was lacking from the previous version. As with most tumblr apps it was always easy to post new content on Tumblr but they all struggled with providing that ease of use for browsing posts from those you are following.

The new rebranded application can be found on the iTunes app store under its new name “Tumblr”, and as an additional benefit it is free to download. I highly recommend this application and look forward to seeing future updates as they roll out.

*Note: We experienced a small posting error today. This post was published earlier today but scheduled for 2/25. The issue has been corrected and set to today, 3/3.

Tumblr continues to confuse me. As the team continues to add new features to their platform, I no longer know what Tumblr is and even more what it wants to become.

Early last week the Tumblr team announced two new features. One continues to build on its strength of making it easier to publish content to the web while the other feels like a hand forcing Tumblr to be something else. Tumblr is growing, but with these latest changes it seems like Tumblr just made the leap out of microblogging.

A great addition to the “how” of posting to Tumblr is the new call in number feature. From a phone registered with Tumblr users can record an audio post from their phone. After recording, the call is then published to the tumblelog in a matter of a few minutes.

Providing this service continues to build on what Tumblr does best by making it even simpler to post your content. Overall this is a great addition, however, Tumblr needs to drop the creepy computer voice if it still wants to considers itself “sexy as hell“.

Tumblr now provides several publishing options

Along with calling into Tumblr users now have more control on when their posts will be published. Posts now have the option to be published at a specific time, processed in a queue or saved as a draft.

Options like these have been popular on Twitter as a third party service. Many blogs also allow for this type of scheduling however there is something about this new feature being developed by Tumblr that has me questioning its future.

Over the last few iterations Tumblr has become more blog-like. From a use perspective, Tumblr no longer competes with other microblogs but instead pushes features that match up with other blogging platforms like Blogger, Wordpress and Vox. Tumblr is walking a thin line of being a robust microblog or becoming a crippled blog.

We know Tumblr is searching for a business model and needs to start focusing on premium services, but these last few updates have me questioning what Tumblr is and how to balance it with my current mix of online publishing.

Hopefully the Tumblr team comes through with some answers soon because right now I’m getting lost in the noise of new features and losing sight of Tumblr’s real advantages in the blogging/microblogging world.

Yesterday Tumblr announced they are testing a new integration feature. From a link not even available from the normal dashboard users can now link their Twitter account with their Tumblelog.

Not a surprise, this update includes the ability to automatically send your Tumblr posts to Twitter. What has gone unannounced, however, is that Tumblr has also become a web-based Twitter client.

After adding a Twitter account, it will then be displayed under available Tumblelog(s) in the dashboard. From this new Twitter page users will be able to read tweets from the people they are following and even update their own account.

The shocker to all of this is Tumblr seems to have worked out threaded conversations, something Twitter has yet to address. From the screenshot below Tumblr does this by displaying what was tweeted before the reply similar to how Tumblr displays reblogging.

By going to http://www.tumblr.com/settings?twitter users can access the new settings. The auto updates to Twitter are great, but it’s the other features that are the most interesting. Using Tumblr as a Twitter client still has a long way to go but it shows promise and at the very least demonstrates threaded conversations can work.

Last week Tumblr released a redesign of their Theme Garden. Theme Garden was first introduced as part of Tumblr v5 and makes finding and applying themes easier than ever. In previous versions of Tumblr users had to update the theme from the customize screen and often this required them to be comfortable viewing the code behind the theme.

From the redesigned Theme Garden users can browse a growing selection of user submitted themes. Each theme listed provides a link to the creator, the number people using the theme and links to preview or install the theme.

Tumblr Version 5 went live just a few weeks ago so I was surprised to see an update so soon however I love the new design and glad to see the Garden is still growing. In fact, from the time Tumblr first announced the redesign on Thursday to the day of this post Tumblr has added 15 new themes and an additional 11,219 users. More themes are in the queue awaiting review so you can expect the Theme Garden to keep on growing.

If you are new to Tumblr or looking to change up your design check out the Theme Garden and let us know your favorite theme in the comments below.

Yesterday was another big win for the Tumblr team. Just a few hours before Barack Obama was sworn in as President, the official Presidential Inaugural Committee launched their Inaugural Blog powered by Tumblr. Throughout the day the blog was used to post and reblog pictures, video and quotes.

From the campaign trail to the first day of office social media has been leveraged to build a stronger communication channel. Twitter and now Tumblr are providing tools for the people to express their feelings and share their thoughts on this truly historic event.

You can still contribute to the blog by submitting text, photo, link, quote or video to a webform hosted
here.

Before 2008 came to a close Tumblr was able to raise $4.5 million in funding. Last week we started to see some of this come to fruition with the release of Tumblr v5.

Introducing: Tumblr v5 from David Karp on Vimeo.

In its fifth iteration Tumblr released a number of new features and continued to focus on its core strengths of clean interfaces and ease of use. With these updates it is easier than ever to explore tumblelogs and what others are posting.

A new charting tool called Trends allows users to compare keywords and for the first time Tumblr users can also search all tumblelogs using its radar page.

Finding tumblelogs to follow is also a breeze thanks to a couple of new updates. Under a user’s following page Tumblr displays a list of recommended tumblelogs. The user directory has also been updated to make it easier to find interesting tumblelogs by category.

With each new release Tumblr continues to grow and add features. Every iteration makes room for upcoming features and with robust tools being developed around exploring and sharing content, I cannot wait to see what is coming down the pipe.

Tumblr has an extremely talented and creative community posting amazing content everyday. Over the last year the community has really blossomed, and amazing bits of mixed media (images, video and audio) has been collected on the site.

To close out 2008 Matt McInerney of Pixelspread launched the Tumblr Awards. The awards is a community event and will recognize the best tumblelogs of 2008 across a variety of categories.

Nominations were submitted by the Tumblr community and a number of Judges are assisting in creating the final list of nominations. This will not be a small task as over 700 nominations were submitted across 13 categories. Once the final list has been created voting for winners will be open to the community.

If you are a Tumblr user or interested in getting started check out the Tumblr Awards for information. Voting will be opening soon and the organizers can use some additional help in finding sponsors for prizes in a number of categories.

Tumblr Awards 2008 Categories:

• Overall Best Tumblelog
• Best use of reblogging
• Most Creative Use of Tumblr
• Best Group/Community
• Best Audio posts
• Best Video posts
• Best Image posts
• Best Quotes or Conversations
• Best Original Content/Editorials
• Best Tumblelog Design
• Best use of Typography
• Best Tumblr Theme Designer
• Best Free Tumblr Theme

Techcrunch and Mashable are both reporting that Tumblr has raised an additional $4.5 million in a Series B round with Union Square Ventures and Spark Capital. This was a surprising announcement in these troubled times however this invest will play a critical role for the platform’s future.

Tumblr has been gaining traffic and the funding will provide additional runway. More importantly though is that similar to Twitter, Tumblr lacks any form of a business model. Along with the funding announcement, founder David Karp has announced plans to launch premium services early in 2009. There is still no word as to what these services will be, however, my hope is that they are the “big features” first hinted at in October.

From the Tumblr blog, “big features” were announced back in early October with the last interface update. Since then the team has only delivered the ability to “like” posts and a few API changes. Neither of which justify the interface overhaul.

To this point, Pownce has really been the only other player to leverage the premium business model. Upgrading a Pownce account to the pro version added the ability to store more files and provided an additional level of design customization. However, one of the benefits of using Tumblr is its flexibility. Users can already customize the HTML and add custom CSS. And honestly, with Pownce closing its doors today, I wouldn’t bet the house on that business model.

It will be interesting to see what additional features are going to be added to the mix from a platform that made its name from being simple to use and extremely customizable. It sounds as if Tumblr will be hitting the ground running in 2009 and we look forward to providing you more updates as they emerge.