Lifestreaming reminds me of blogging's good old days

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. 

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. 

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. 

I'm experimenting with Posterous for a number of reasons:

1. It allows me to get stuff off my mind quickly and easily.
2. 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).
3. It gives me more room to write than does Twitter. 
4. I can export content to other sources, when and where appropriate such as my blog and/or Twitter. 

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 myself 

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. 

Posted via email from Paul Chaney's [Other] Blog

Comments

[Brenda Young]

I was just looking at Posterous for most of the reasons you mentioned. --It's that extra space for a longer comment and the ability to export that seems compelling.

[Marc Meyer]

Hey Paul, nice post, I like these. Quick question; Can either be used with specific domains? Or do they both use some variance of a subdomain?

[Mark Simmons]

Hello, Paul.

We have a few new things coming out in the next week that will allow you to manage all of your life streaming, microblogging, and more all via TypePad. Check out http://www.typepad.com/features/blogit.html to try out the TypePad bookmarklet.

[Paul Chaney]

You can set both up with TLD's. For example, my Posterous blog is www.paulchaney.net.

[Paul Chaney]

Checking it out now Mark. Thanks for the heads-up.

[Paul Chaney]

Posterous and Tumblr really add the extra that's needed that Twitter lacks. I like it because you can use it as the engine to run all your blogging and micro-blogging activities.

[Mark Simmons]

Let me know what you think. Well be launching a lot more cool stuff next week, including a few microblogging themes like the one im using on my micro / mini blog: http://markthink.typepad.com/bullet_list/. (Thats an example, not link bait. :) )

Also, I think youve seen the cross-posting features in TypePad. Were working on improving that as well.

[Paul Chaney]

Tell me more Mark. Looking forward to new themes. I like the Blogit bookmarklet. Very nice and comparable to what Posterous offers.

[Jim "Genuine" Turner]

I was reminiscing about blogging's good old days a few weeks back. I was thinking about blog rolls and trackbacks and comments and all the things that we now think are antiquated. I actually have these other tools but they still feel like blogging to me.

[Nike Shox Turmoil]

This is excellent news, we old hands have worried about this

important site for years, I recorded it in the 1960's.

[air jordan 1]

I like these. Quick question; Can either be used with specific domains? Or do they both use some variance of a subdomain?

[Paul Chaney]

Both support custom domain names.