The Steve Rubel Stream

Why sent content to Gmail? Why not send to Posterous from the source data? It looks like there is one extra step in the process that seems unnecessary.

Thanks for showing this, though! I'm going to replicate this if I can to see if Posterous can replace the lifestream I've set up on my blog.

@Chris it needs to get processed first. And to me if I am sending it in from a Gmail address, that's the same thing.

Sounds good, but it's a lot of work. I'm not sure how deep I'm going into all this. Anyway, it's an interesting way.

Is the process automatic? Do you have filters and routing rules in place to forward content or is it manual so you can filter the info yourself? I suppose process is really where you digest the content and come up with your own take on things.

@Chris, no there isn't. It still requires human intervention.

I am still kinda at odds choosing between friendfeed and posterous as my centralize lifestream

Social networking streaming will increasingly supplant just blogs and websites. You're definitely pioneering here. I'm moving towards it too.

Interesting process. Friendfeed has much of the capability of posterous for distribution and sharing. As well, facebook can automatically pull shared posts from Google reader and more. Why have posterous in the loop? I've experimented here and wonder if there's any efficency gain in one-to-many posting. I use ping.fm for this. thoughts?

Steve,

What about getting data out of Posterous if it goes away? Not sure how likely that is or isn't, but if it happens, your lifestream goes away or rather exists only on the services you've shared out via Posterous.

I use friendfeed in pretty much the same way Steve. I'm still playing with posterous (since I spotted it on your firendfeed yesterday) and after years of messing around with widgets, statcounters, API's and all of the other nonsense that got in the way of what I was trying to do, really like it a lot.

Like I said, early days for me on this platform - and I'm still looking for a naughty plan for it, but I like it the image and the process you explain above looks to be spot on to me.

Using a Mac for iPhone sync? How about the volume if information overload from social network comments, both friend & fans? (like this) Does Twitter fit here? Where is the main portal for you work--to find you?

Ok i had to go back to top of page to find blog link... counterintuitive... also clicking http://www.steverubel.com/ brought me back here... redirect? Your graphic logo posts are grainy in Safari in Win XP... will try the Mac version. Found your basic info in profile here, inc. PR co., reminds me of that ad co. that pioneered paperless, desk-less offices... don't like some aspects of info overload like Kawasaki's Twitter feeds. Would like to see an 'instrument' credit like music records have: keyboard, apps computer & iPhone, monitor setup, client list, etc.--do you give away del.ici.ous bookmarks, web browser used with what plug ins, etc.as you are the new rock/sports star...

@rickg you're right. with all this services like posterous, facebook, etc, what if the services no longers available. I still prefer to keep my thoughts in my own blogs so that forever it still belongs to me. That say I still think posterous has the potential of making it big, maybe as a central point to disburse informations to many sites you are maintaining.

Would love to see a video of this process, Steve.

1.Very useful post! 2.You might want to check out Lovely Charts (online diagramming software http://bit.ly/10pQap )

I feel a need a better editor than what gmail and the posterous editor supplies. Seriously, no image support in posterous when making a post? I tend to use LiveWriter for composition and it doesn't support posterous (yet). However conceptually i think may be where we will all head, but to a degree you can achieve similar concepts using friendfeed.

Love the post, excellent look into how the experts are making sense of all the applications out there.

Question, why are you using WriteRoom on your phone instead of the Evernote app, since you use it on the web as well? Any reason? I find Evernote to be excellent in both formats.

Your workflow seemed really interesting to me so I've reconfigured my processes to use the tools and methods that you outlined above to collect, edit, and distribute content. Testing with a few old items seems to indicate that posts are making it to their intended destinations without dupes. Thanks very much for sharing!

Steve: Any particular reason you use both Mindmeister and Mindnode?

I think the beauty of this service is the flexibility you have to write the quick hits and the longer pieces without having to select a different medium.

One problem I'm finding. How to avoid duplicate posts on the endpoint site that is streamed to, in my case Friendfeed . For example, I want to post the same thing on Facebook, Twitter, and Friendfeed, but don't want the posts on FB and Twitter to get autoposted on FF too. I'm not sure there is an answer now, except to manually delete them

Bob, Kevin is right, you just have to adjust your settings on FF to avoid the dups. I'm finding that for things like Yelp, Google Reader and delicious, I'm using FF to pull those in and then republish out to Twitter. So I tell FF to only publish those feeds to Twitter and nothing else (FF pulls in a lot of other feeds from me, but I don't want the dups to go back to Twitter).

Thanks for sharing this, Steve. Many of my clients ask about how to streamline their processes. So, I will certainly put this to the test. My question however is in your choice of mindmaps. Why do you use both MindMeister and MindNode. Comparatively speaking, what does one have over the other. Personally, I've been using X-Mind and considering exploring alternative options. Any feedback would be appreciated.

Steve, I guess I need to setup such a workflow. Coz, I have redundancy in the services. Posterous, FriendFeed has been configured to each other. So, posting redundantly.

BTW which tool did you use to make this pic?

that was a nice one!

Well I guess this is one way of doing it...... With so many tools are there and more popping up each day it's hard to tell which process is best but I like your style.

I respect your non selfish approach to showing bloggers HOW TO use applications in the real world since many people really need help in launching content-your shout out's for Zemanta Posterous and other apps is greatly appreciated-Now if we could all Just have you write our content- the rest would be easy !

Steve,
Great post and thanks for sharing. I started using Posterous after you explained how it created a hybrid between real-time Tweets and slower cycle analytical blog posts. I immediately got into trouble with multiple posts from duplicate services feeding FB, Twitter, etc. so I had to layout the information flow and decide which service should feed which network. All this suggests we are reaching the point in the evolution of the tools and the experience of the users that would enable the creation of a platform to manage content creation and dissemination.

Understand about half of this,but have just started using Posterous,which I think is GREAT!

Steve, its funny that we seem to have developed similar strategies. I think your approach is a little cleaner than mine so I might need to borrow some of your process and see if it works for me. Here is how I am doing it currently http://bit.ly/I19Cn (from my Tumblr). I have found that Twitter is best for announcing the content as I create it. And I am creating a little iPhone App to consolidate my online presence (hope to have that out soon). Tumblr has become my goto place for storing content I find interesting, the blog on WP tends to be more original content (90% of the time). Where I get stuck is using FriendFeed and Twitter. I cannot find a comfortable way to integrate those two into my work flow, though I keep trying. -Chris

Kwvin, Jeff & Steve. Thanks! Didn't know FF could post to Twitter. That should help considerably. And decoupling some accounts will help too.

hmmmm, seems complicated...or maybe technology hasn't allowed us to have like 1 or 2 arrows, instead of your 7 arrows (referencing your flowchart)...I am looking forward to this being more integrated and frictionless

Your post was a good reminder to me of Posterous which I had set up almost a year ago. I know there are things that just don't make the cut for my blog and that I want to add multimedia when travelling and just with my Blackberry with me so I have gone back today to revisit Utterli and Posterous to decide which to use.

My only concern on using a hosted service is that no matter how good it is, if there is no back up my content could disappear overnight as happened with Magnol.ia earlier this year.

Have you considered this Steve or isn't it an issue for you?

@Krishna, I absolutely did. First, everything is backed up in Gmail. Second, Posterous has said that all content will be exportable. So, should they go belly up, I can port my content to Wordpress or some other solution.

fyi if you notice stuff accidentally showing up in search, it's due to emailing via gmail. =)

Steve - Nice set-up. The graphic probably makes it look more complicated than it really is, huh? I'm interested to hear how Zemanta is working out for you. Ideas and suggestions welcome.

Jim
VP BD @ Zemanta in NYC

Steve, thanks for sharing your workflow. You might have got me started on something that I could get addicted to. Gmail as a central processor seems to be a good strategy- least likely to go belly-up IMHO.

Steve,

I think that is a very effective workflow. You could probably streamline it a bit but at this early stage when even the tools AND platforms are evolving I know it is hard to lock in some tools/practices.

But thanks for showing a great example of using technology to actually live your own life to the fullest potential. Great post. Thanks.

Imran
Will Your Life's Work "Live, Forever"?
It Will, At http://neternity.org

This looks like a great set-up, Steve. I've been following your suggestions on GMail for some time and use most of the tools you mention here. I'm thinking of going the same route.

Steve what a great post you have put together, its one illustrating many new services to me. I like the work flow and feel myself implementing this approach also. Consider me a new follower.

Wishing you much success Darron ;-)

My head is spinning with all this integration...I'll have to reread a few more times to figure out which works best.

Well, I must say that from a reader point of view, your 'lifestream' looks really like a blog :-) Does it mean that it is just a change in your workflow, more than a change in the presentation layer ?

Have you considered real lifestreaming platforms such as storytlr.com, soup.io, sweetcron,... ? Check my site, this one is powered by storytlr: http://eschnou.com.

Okay, okay ... I am on the verge of setting up my own account on Posterous. I started with a negative view of this, but you are winning me over Steve.

Steve, just out of curiosity, how did you create the above graphic ... that is, what software package did you use? I like it. Very nicely done.

@Bruce. Cool! I used Keynote.

@Steve .... Thanks! Wow, you are quick. I've resisted getting KeyNote, but now I'm headed to the Apple site to grab it.

I've been using Tumblr. Any particular reason you chose Posterous?

@Scott Tumblr is great. But Posterous' email capes are amazing. Mashable did a good write up last night. Posterous vs. Tumblr: A Head to Head

Very interesting - and helpful. I'm experimenting with improvements to my own workflow these days - so this is timely and gives me some new ideas to try.

Steve, what I liked about your old blog was that the posts were in-depth and well thought out. When I read one of your posts, I always knew that I would learn something interesting. With this new format, I find less value in the individual posts, and I think more time is required on the reader's part to sift through the post titles for ones that interest them.

@Sodani, I hear you. But the web is moving from a model of posts/pages to a real-time stream. And adapt I must.

@sodani I think there's room for both. Posterous, as I've posted elsewhere, reminds me of blogging when I started back in 2001 - almost everyone used their blogs to point to other great stuff, rather than trying to write long, discursive essays or pseudo-news. So the way I use Posterous is that it's the hub for short stuff - links to other content, things that I like, and so on. Those get posted to my blog, too, via the "Publish everything" feature. On my blog, I also write longer stuff, too.

whew, you must have an agile mind to keep up with all that stuff, Steve! I have just about abandoned Google Reader and now use Twitter and Facebook as my main "feed readers." Gmail is my hub too. Evernote Premium is a great catch-all database for just about everything. I wish I could weld Facebook, Twitter, Gmail and Evernote into one service so I could stop wasting time back and forth...

Steve i don't get the part from friendfeed to gmail,the first connection. How can you set up to receive gmail notification from specific friendfeedsubscriptions?

Thanks for sharing blog. I like this.
_________________
penis enhancement

Very helpful, Steve. I've been on Posterous for several months, sort of figuring my way around features and process flow. Wish I had discovered this post when I started out, but now that I have, I'll make use of the tips and insights from you and all the other folks. Thanks for sharing your insights!

I was very happy with posterous until they deleted my account without warning. If you are able to talk some reason into these guys, then there may be a chance that posterous.com could be saved from the whim of its owners. Such censorship might to be excusable for someone prone to infantile behavior, but not for someone who seeks to run a blogging platform. If they cannot be reasoned with (they did not respond to my questions via email), then I would advise against depending too much on the reliability of this platform, because when the admins decide to kick out bloggers whose opinions they do not agree with, then that is a rather precarious situation. I am going to guess that it was the fact that I spoke out against the censorship of the fugitivus blog following the Google Buzz fiasco that led the owners of posterous.com to censor my posts. But it is not the censorship alone that is alarming, but the fact that they pulled the plug entirely without warning that is completely inexcusable from the point of view of offering a reliable service. At this point in time, I have to say I find posterous.com an UNreliable service and would strongly advise against relying on it in any way. Although I am an optimist and hope that they can do something to get back on the right track, I think at present I would give them an "F" (for "FAIL") regarding their complete botch up from a business ethics and/or business practices point of view.... VERY disappointing and also a VERY RUDE AWAKENING.

:( nmw

Norbert,

Looks to me like you were using your Posterous account as a massive SEO link-farm. That's not censorship, that's banning for abuse of the TOS.

Dixonge,

I don't know who you are, but I find you trash-can + beer drinking pics amusing.

I don't know what the basis of your assumption is, but if you call anyone who makes more than 1 post a spammer then you must feel a little bit awkward on the web, no?

I make dozens of posts per day -- but that is not the way I feel that most people define a spammer. I think being a prolific writer has little to do with spam. The way I think of spam and/or link farms is that they are PPC (Google adwords / adsense) based. I would also call the Google language tools page a link farm (especially check out the bottom of it).

As long as you don't define what you mean by spam and/or link farms, I feel your comment is more / less meaningless.

Thanks for posting, though -- and I certainly wouldn't call you a spammer for that!

;) nmw

Norbert,

I just did a Google search for your name on the Posterous.com site. Had to use the cached copy since your account was deleted. And that is why I said what I said. It has nothing to do with your one comment here. It has to do with the fact that all of your posts are link-bait. You were using your Posterous account tp work the system to try and increase SEO for either yourself or clients. That's cool, hope you make some money at it, but you can't possibly be surprised or complain if Posterous pulls your account.

So perhaps 'spam' isn't the right word, but I hate link-farms even more than spam......they ruin any meaningful results for Google searches. Either way your complaints against Posterous are more or less meaningless.

You say all of my posts are link bait. Please show me 1 example.

If you cannot back up your accusation with actual data, then I think that shows that you are full of shit.

Oh Norbert. Now you have gone from merely amusing to downright annoying! Here is a screenshot of Google's cached copy of your banned Posterous profile

http://gallery.me.com/dixonge#100040/NMW%20screenshot

All those links go to either nowhere at all or are redirected. All the TLD's are foreign countries, all the post titles are nothing but keywords. your Twitter feed is the same. So is your profile on Business Week. Your so-called blogs are full of wordy posts and comments which say nothing. A simple Google search reveals all.

You are trying to game the search engines for page rank. Please be man enough to admit it and stop this foolish charade.

And my apologies to Steve for this ridiculousness on his site.

You have shown nothing, dixonge. Your empty blather remains meaningless, and I too feel sorry for Mr. Rubel that we have to listen to such nonsense.

BTW: have you received permission from Apple Computer Inc. to upload NFL images onto their servers? Did you clear that with the National Football League and/or any television broadcasting services who have acquired the rights to broadcast those images to the public? I doubt that the people at Apple would be as stupid as the Google guys to blatantly tout intellectual property rights by allowing file sharing of copyright works on the internet. I am quite sure that Apple Computer, Inc. stands firmly behind the intellectual property rights of publishers, and that should anyone charge you for violation of copyright law, you may very well be at risk of losing your shirt.

Now since you seem to have not even one iota of knowledge concerning topics you continue to naively profuse utter nonsense about, I suggest you just STFU before you make it blatantly obvious to the whole world what a complete nincompoop you apparently are.

*sigh*

Will I never learn? No more troll-feeding, I swear.

Smart decision, dixonge.

Next time, look *before* you leap... (and If you still leap for the lulz and then you find that you've stepped in it, then moving along is a good idea ;)

Even better would be owning up to your mistake (and not starting even more trouble) -- but maybe you *will* learn from your mistakes... -- so I'll just let that last remark slide.

Happy trails!

Norbert, you idiot. I retract nothing. Not arguing with idiots is not the same as giving up. I have made no mistakes in my assessment of your link-bait business model. Any one who is still reading can see the truth for themselves. Just because I am now disengaging from this topic does not mean that I am mistaken or that I am giving up, it just means that I have better things to do with my time than to continue to debate with the likes of you.

Yea, I would definitely advise you take down copyright material you have uploaded onto Apple Computer's me.com website (e.g. http://gallery.me.com/dixonge#100040/owenglitcopy&bgcolor= )

Perhaps you are not at immediate risk, but it is probably nonetheless a violation of copyright law. Do you think Terrell Owens cares whether or how you use his personal brand on the web? Do you think it's right to just copy / paste anything you want? Without permission? Without even attributing the source?

I think you still have a lot to learn about how the internet works. AFAIK, you are violating what is legally permissible, but IANAL.

Good luck with trying to figure out a solution to your online mistakes, truth problems, legal issues, etc.

@steverubel Its been one year since this article, can we see an updated workflow?

That's something I look forward to seeing!

----- Reply message -----
From: "Comment to Posterous" <

Too cool.

Jason: I woke up with the exact same thought and I didn't realize it was a year after the date of the original post. <weirdscience>

Steve: I guess it's an omen...you really have to update it now. : )

Thanks Steve, looking forward to it!