Tumblr
Discussion
Tumblr as the platform of choice for the Occupy Wall Street movement
"If you were part of a network of demonstrators grabbing magazine covers and galvanizing activists across the country, how would you spread the word and keep the momentum building? Twitter? Facebook? Google+?
Try Tumblr, the less-everyday-talked-about but no less powerful microblogging service that’s really a mashup of multiple social networking concepts. Think Twitter without the 140-character straitjacket, Facebook and Google+ without the sketchy privacy issues or “to-friend-or-not-friend” mentality, or WordPress, only more easily adapted to social activities like crowdsourcing. Think text, links, images, audio, video and a simple framework for short-form blogging. Tumblr boasts a total 11.4 billion posts and 31.4 million total blogs to date. The service claims just shy of 39 million posts have gone up (so far) today alone.
And according to Discovery, it’s the platform of choice for the Occupy Wall Street movement, a loosely organized, intentionally leaderless series of demonstrations that began in New York City’s Zuccotti Park, but have since spread across the country. The movement’s goals include protesting economic and social disparity as well as the corrupting influence of corporate money on government. Some compare it to the so-called “Arab Spring” that swept through Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and over a dozen other countries this year. “It is remarkable what a little more than 100,000 Americans, showing up and staying awhile have done in three weeks,” writes consumer activist and five-time presidential candidate Ralph Nader in a piece about the movement. The group’s official site claims it’s preparing for a “day of action” this Saturday, October 15, in over 950 cities and 82 countries.
And while OWS is using Facebook, Twitter, Livestream and Reddit to get the word out, the movement’s supporters are apparently flocking to Tumblr." (http://techland.time.com/2011/10/14/the-high-tech-behind-occupy-wall-streets-low-tech-message/)