You’ve mastered Facebook and Twitter. You’re blogging like you’ve never blogged before. You’re posting live video and hosting live chats. You’re sending text alerts and updating your mobile site.

So what is the next big technology media sites should be using? My vote goes to Tumblr, which is something between Twitter and a blog.

Here’s what they say:

Tumblr lets you effortlessly share anything. Post text, photos, quotes, links, music, and videos, from your browser, phone, desktop, email, or wherever you happen to be. You can customize everything, from colors, to your theme‘s HTML.

Why you should start a Tumblr

1. It’s easy to post, and your updates are already pre-formatted depending on what you want to share (a quote, a link, some text, a video, a photo, etc.).

2. It’s already mobile. Go to your page from a desktop site and you’ll see the normal view. Go to it from your smartphone and you’ll see the mobile view. And it’s easy to share from your mobile site using the tumblr app.

3. It’s niche. Readers subscribe to your tumblr, which brings everything you post into their stream. This works well with niche content, because people are more likely to subscribe to content that they are passionate about (a sports team, politics, etc.)

4. It goes into readers’ feed. I mentioned this already, but tumblr uses the same feed style that has worked well for Facebook and Twitter. Once you subscribe, updates go into your main feed so you’re sure not to miss them.

5. Everybody else is doing it. Check out tumblrs from Washington Post Style, Newsweek, The Today Show, The Atlantic, The Detroit News, ABC News Radio and Life Magazine (to name a few).

Some ideas for your first Tumblr

• Post interesting quotes that make their way into your publication (and link to the full stories).
• Follow a great local high school athlete who went on to play college and pro sports elsewhere (using links to stories and videos).
• Have your design desk post an image of the paper’s front page each day, and discuss the story play and challenges that went into the news decisions.
• Your photo desk could post a photo of the day.
• Your features staff could post interesting links they find as they’re researching their next stories.

Do you have other ideas for news tumblrs? Or know of news orgs using them well? Please share in the comments area below.