Tumblr take you to see the future development of traditional media

Through the presidential debate in the United States, Tumblr is also increasingly being paid attention to by traditional media. If anyone doubts Tumblr's determination to shift to mainstream media, their recent hiring of bloggers to cover the decisions of the Republican and Democratic Party conventions has completely dispelled their doubts.

Tumblr is gradually transforming into traditional media, which is a surface, and more importantly, many traditional media are sparing no effort to learn from Tumblr-not only using its platform, but even emulating its features, including the obsession with GIF animation and internet pop culture. Although the impact of the move on news is good or bad, it still needs our consideration, but the phenomenon has indeed happened.

The debate on the U.S. presidential election is a perfect way of Tumblr handling news events. They collaborated with Livestream to launch a project called "Live gifing The Debates", which allowed 6 digital artists and Tumblr bloggers to watch the presidential debate and make animated cartoons of the classic moments in their eyes. By the end of the debate, a total of more than 80 GIF animations were produced.

It's not just Tumblr and BuzzFeed, but mainstream media sites such as the Guardian and Atlantic have spent a long time producing animated cartoons of the U.S. presidential debate. Sometimes a funny animation of Vice President Joe Biden's repeated smiles, sometimes classic moments, such as Mr Obama's "steed and bayonet" response to Mitt Romney's views on military issues.

The media struggled to capture these moments, hoping to hold on to the next Internet pop culture. As a carrier of these cultures, many pictures and phrases will quickly spread through the internet, even after the election will still be "buzzing". The ultimate goal, of course, is to attract traffic. GIF animation to cover the critical moments in major news events is only a microcosm of the intersection of media and news agencies, the main driver of this trend is Twitter and other social media tools.

Tumblr is at the heart of the phenomenon because the platform finds its perfect location between traditional blogs and the real-time content channels provided by Twitter: Tumblr's "reblog" button is very similar to Twitter's retweet function, A new GIF animation or other Internet pop element can be spread throughout the blogosphere in a matter of minutes, making Tumblr's monthly page views up to a staggering 15 billion.

More than one person has said that this process dramatically compresses the life cycle of political news and even all news. It was first spread through Twitter and then became the talk of topical commentary in mainstream news outlets such as CNN. The news cycle was supposed to last for days or even weeks, but now, at most, a few hours.

Is it good or bad for politics and other serious subjects? A lot of people think it's harmful because people focus on a certain moment, for example, when Mitt Romney mentions "Big Bird" in the second debate, it creates a lot of wacky Twitter accounts and gif animations, but few political comments are worth reading. The same thing is not uncommon in the general election debate.

"This debate is even more serious and it's hard to find the right time to make GIF animations." "Dianna McDougall, a designer and social media counselor, Diana Mcduguel the final debate. She is one of the GIF artists hired by Tumblr. McDougall's GIF live-production career began with the MTV Music Video Awards, when she discovered that live gif can get a lot of attention. She also produced an animated GIF for the first two rounds of debate. "When people see these animations, they think they don't have to watch the whole video." "she said. The commentary undoubtedly highlights the potential problems of this trend.

But others argue that such a model would allow some of the less important news to disappear more quickly in the public eye without having to spend days or weeks getting started. But the risk is that people will get used to all sorts of snippets of Twitter and not focus on the important issues involved in the campaign itself or other news events.

Tumblr is also just one part of the big trend, and other sites such as BuzzFeed have added political channels earlier this year. BuzzFeed even dug up Ben (Ben Smith) from the Politico political website. This raises the question of whether BuzzFeed can report political news and other serious events like the celebrity scandal. are GIF animations and slides enough to explain important political issues? Or is politics becoming another form of entertainment?

Smith once said that Web sites such as BuzzFeed and Tumblr are just one part of how the media works, and that any kind of news-whether political or otherwise-must find a way to use them rationally. My two daughters are at puberty, and I guarantee that most of what they consume comes from Twitter, Tumblr, or similar sites, filled with quirky accounts and GIF animations. Whether I like it or not, it will be an important part of the future of the content industry, and the importance is growing.

This article compiles from Businessweek