4 Free Clients To Conveniently Blog On Tumblr

Blogging on Tumblr using their web interface couldn’t possibly be easier. That said, since its inception, Tumblr has continued to add new features enhancing the user experience, the latest of which is the ‘Ask’ feature, opening up more means of interaction by allowing readers to submit questions, which you can choose to answer in the form of blog posts.

And of course, since its inception, third party apps have cropped up, complementing their straightforward approach to blogging. Here are 4 must-have free cross platform desktop and browser apps to blog on Tumblr.

Desktop Apps

Tumbleweed

When you open up the Adobe Air app, Tumbleweed, the first thing you see are your latest posts. Tumbleweed allows you to post to all 7 categories available on Tumblr, text posts, photos, quotes, links, chat, audio and video posts. When it comes to videos, you can’t upload files directly from your computer to Tumblr, but rather have the ability to embed a video that is already available online.

Tumbleweed supports multiple tumblelogs, and you can add tags and custom urls to your posts when you blog on Tumblr.

Drawbacks: Posts are not automatically sent to your Twitter feed.

AlertThingy

AlertThingy is another Adobe Air client you can use to update your Tumblelog. You can add entries to any of the 7 categories, drag and drop photos, and audio and video files. To post a video, copy and paste the embed code into the body of a new text entry, and it will convert it into a video.

Drawbacks: AlertThingy does not support multiple Tumblelogs, posts are not sent to your Twitter feed, embedded videos are classified as text posts, and some of you might not like the fact that each post is appended with the text ‘via AlertThingy.’

Browser Apps

Chrome Tumblr Dashboard

If you’re a Google Chrome fan, you’ll be happy to know the Chrome Dashboard extension allows you to share content easily from within Chrome, and to also check out the latest posts from tumblelogs you follow.

If you’re watching a video online and want to share it the next time you blog on Tumblr, simply click on the ‘Share on Tumblr’ link, and it will automatically embed the video for you and fill out the caption with the video title, and with YouTube videos, it also adds a link to the YouTube member’s profile page. Links and article titles are also automatically filled in for you. If there are several photos on a page, the extension will provide you with a list of thumbnails and choosing one fills in the link to the image from the website.

The Chrome extension gives you access to advanced Tumblr features including publishing options, tags and custom urls, and supports multiple tumblelogs.

Drawbacks: The window can be a little bit slow to load, and copy and paste doesn’t work.

Tumblr Post

The Tumblr Firefox addon Tumblr Post gives you quick access to blog on Tumblr by letting you write a text entry, upload photos or audio files from your computer, as well as posting the link to the current page you are on, by right-clicking the Tumblr icon in the Firefox status bar on the bottom of the page.

If you come across a picture you’d like to share on your Tumblelog, right click the image and choose ‘Post photo to my tumblelog.’ To post a video, copy and paste the embed code into the body of a new text entry, and it will convert it into a video.

You can also add tags to your entries, add captions and set click-through links for images. Tumblr Post supports multiple tumblelogs.

Drawbacks: Uploading MP3 files from your computer doesn’t seem to work at all, and all videos posted using Tumblr Post will be classified as text posts.

Cross-posting services

There are a few other services which enable cross-posting to several blogging sites, many of which include support for Tumblr, such as Posty, HelloTxt, Postling, Shareaholic, and Ping.fm, which also allows you to add a bot to your Google Talk contacts list, which will allow you to update your Tumblelog using IM.

What apps do you prefer to use to post to your Tumblelog? Let us know in the comments.