Tumblr - what's old is new again?

I was struck by the New York Times article this weekend on how media companies are suddenly discovering Tumblr.

Is there anything new here, other than that media companies are about five years behind. Or maybe that Tumblr is about three years behind in actually getting a clear message out about what it is.

Tumblr and another site, Posterous, loosely fall under a genre called "lifestreaming," sort of between blogging and tweeting/texting. Steve Rubel switched his blog, MicroPersuasion, to Posterous a couple of years ago. And he posted a good synopsis of lifestreaming and why he moved from a blog.

Among other things, lifestream sites make it easier to post multimedia elements. For instance, you might send up a series of images and some will automatically create a gallery.

(Update: Here's another good Tumblr explanation from Mediaite.)

Anyhow, if you are considering going this way, there are words of warning from the Times article:

Unlike Twitter, where it is not uncommon for publishers to simply set up accounts that automatically publish links to their articles and blog posts, Tumblr requires publishers to add more commentary and interaction if they want to win favor with its community.