Can Tumblr be consider social networking?

I think of it as a both.

Yes.

Good lord! Is there anything that isn’t social networking these days? Or for that matter, ever? The whole point of communicating is to meet up with other people and share ideas with them. Idea sharing can lead to other kinds of sharing, or group formation.

I think we throw around this term—social networking—like it’s some kind of magical chant. It’s poorly defined and I think people are really thinking more about the function of software than the meaning of the word.

Yeah. Tumblr is social networking.

Yes it is. It’s not the best system for social networking but it’s no worse than Twitter. People get to know each other through reblogs and likes, then they start following each other and there you have your network. But you have to reblog and like other people’s blogs a lot otherwise no-one will know you’re there.

I definitely think it’s social networking. It’s kind of like Twitter, only it’s a bit less irritating.

Well I agree with you view.
But I also think that it depends on the way its used. It can be used the way you say, where you can meet people etc, but the main function is to be used as a publishing service. So you can interpret it various ways, but I think the tools they added, make it more than just a blog tool, and make it in to some kind of social network yes, although I would say its on the limit…a bit less social then Twitter.

But I love your question!