I remember when blogging was much less "long form" and much more extemporaneous. I called it "shoot from the hip, speak from the heart" kind of publishing. Literally, you could have one post that was a quick hit of little more than a paragraph or two sitting above or below a well-researched essay that took three days to write. It was a bit of a hodge-podge, but you had to love it. It was our form of lifestreaming. There was nothing else that facilitated it other than blogs back then.
With apps like
Posterous and
Tumblr, what's old is new again. These "middle earth" blogging platforms sit somewhere between the long form model and the 140 character version. They are "dress casual" in the sense that posting can go both ways. Plus, content can be exported to other sites, such as your blog or Twitter.Â
I'm thinking it meets a real need for me at this point in my blogging journey. I'm not prepared to go the
Steve Rubel route and foresake long form blogging altogether, but I like the off the cuff stuff too, and Twitter, with its character limits, doesn't always fit the bill.Â
Of course, the question remains, which is better, Posterous or Tumblr? I've tried both and I'm leaning toward Posterous, and for a reason I never would have guessed -- the ability to post using email! I mean, really, email is that most often used, yet least appreciated form of publishing, and it happens to be the way Posterous prefers to be talked to.Â
I'm experimenting with Posterous for a number of reasons:
- It allows me to get stuff off my mind quickly and easily.
- It doesn't require the thought that goes into posts on my Social Media Handyman blog (not that a lot of those posts could be categorized by having loads of thought put into them).
- It gives me more room to write than does Twitter.Â
- I can export content to other sources, when and where appropriate such as my blog and/or Twitter.Â
In a manner of speaking, using sites like these could be considered "headwaters" posting. It's where seeds of thoughts and ideas can be planted for future exploration and expansion. Among other things, it becomes a place to archive notes to myselfÂ
Suffice it to say, Posterous appears to offer a number of advantages. But, everything is subject to personal preference. If it appears to provide useful workflow, then I'm sure I'll keep it up. We will see.Â
Posted via email from Paul Chaney's [Other] Blog
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