It’s hard to keep a conversation going on Tumblr due to its comment structure. Yes, you do have a nice back and forth going on someone’s post, but it’s hard to keep track sometimes. The folks over at Yahoo (who bought Tumblr if you didn’t know) believe that all the “cool kids” on the social network/microblogging site need to have an easier way to talk to each other even as they’re sharing or hearting posts. So now they have announced that a chat feature is “on its way” to your mobile app as well as the web version.
If you get a smiling balloon icon on your Tumblr dashboard, that means that you will now have the ability to chat with other users, whether it’s to tell them you like their post, to get to know people whom you think are interesting, or even to let them know that you think they’re wrong (nicely, we hope). When you send a message to someone, that will also activate their chat feature, if they don’t have that chat icon yet.
The chat feature can also be used as “fan mail” for artists, brands, personalities, etc. You already have the ability to message them of course, but having a chat feature makes it much easier to respond, if you do want to respond to them. Since this is something new of course, Yahoo would like to hear your feedback on whether this is working.
Don’t panic yet if you don’t see the chat feature yet on your Tumblr page or your Android app. It’s still rolling out to users so it might take some time. Or you can also wait until someone sends an initial chat message to you.
SOURCE: Yahoo
