Tumblr pulls a Twitter, adds mentions
The blogging network embraces a Twitter-inspired feature. Better late than never?
Seven-year-old blogging network Tumblr is finally embracing user mentions, aka the "@" reply feature first popularized by Twitter and later copied by almost every other social network, Facebook included.
The company made the announcement Tuesday with a Tumblr-appropriate GIF depiction (included below) of how the new mention feature works. Mentions work as expected: you can mention another person with the "@" symbol, and you'll receive a notification in the stream of your dashboard when anyone mentions you.
Mentions could help the Yahoo-owned social network boost activity, as they're designed to alert people to the actions specifically related to them. With that in mind, the release, a clear nod to Twitter's long-standing mentions feature, seems better late than never as Tumblr seeks to help Yahoo gain a stronger foothold with younger audiences.
The mentions addition comes a day after the network battled with hours of errors that affected a number of users. Tumblr has yet to detail exactly what happened, saying only that the "intermittent errors" were caused by a "compatibility issue during an update."
