SMI Aware: “Founded in 2007,  Tumblr is a microblogging and social networking website. The platform allows users to share text, images, quotes, links, video, audio, and chats. As a microblogging site, Tumblr allows users to be creative and build independent content on a personalized page with little effort. How does Tumblr work? A large part of Tumblr’s appeal to its users is its versatility. Registering for Tumblr requires only a valid email address. After creating a username & password, users are provided a URL for their blog which is associated with “. tumblr.com.” Depending on how the user wishes to utilize Tumblr, they are now able to follow other users and post original content to their tumblelog.

Interactions on Tumblr often overlap despite varying widely from one another. Tumblr users fall into one of two categories:

1. Social Networking – Users who concentrate on curating content. These users interact with others through sharing their own content and commenting on the content of other users.
2. Self-Publishing – Users who leverage Tumblr’s low barrier for microblogging to create and publish content on their personal pages.

Both categories of Tumblr users share potentially valuable information on Tumblr. However, investigators should be aware of how these two groups of users differ and set their expectations based on which group their subject belongs to…”