We exaggerate--but there was a shiny, glittering feel to The Next Web's report on last Friday's "Let's Get Ready to Tumblr: Building community by reimagining and redistributing your content." The panel was part of Social Media Week and featured Tumblr notables from Buzzfeed, Flavorpill and The Atlantic.

The panel wasn't solely about sparkling Tumblr boosterism--there were straightforward insights as to why Tumblr simply works for so many who seem utterly addicted to the blogging platform. Buzzfeed's Lindsey Weber said Tumblr is all about ease of use and "observational humor." Ms. Weber and fellow panelists Russ Marshalek (Flavorpill) and Jared Keller (The Atlantic) listed some examples, including Gordon Ramsay and Das Racist Lyrics and Lisa Simpson Reading. There were also plenty of admissions regarding Tumblr's shortcomings:

If there was one theme that kept bubbling to the surface of our love of Tumblr teacup, it was that Tumblr isn't perfect. For all the raging traffic on the social platform, it lacks an analytical background. Platforms like Reddit and StumbleUpon have paid media buying programs because they can provide traffic figures, Tumblr doesn't. In essence, there's no way to find out who's looking at your Tumblr. For a marketing team, this is hell.

"From an operational and editorial standpoint, we adore Tumblr but from a business standpoint it's hard to go to someone in corporate and ask for more money for the platform when we can't even show them real analytics," says Jared.

While the panel addressed books based on viral Tumblrs (a perhaps complicated subject--GQ published some valid criticism of the phenomenon 2 years ago), Mr. Keller revealed that Tumblr has influenced sales of The Atlantic. Teens have written the magazine, said Mr. Keller, "to say that they've purchased the magazine because they loved the content on our Tumblr so much."