The Steve Rubel Stream

I don't know, maybe you should write a blog post on it so people can comment. Just like this is, only harder to find and follow.

Hi Steve

Have been following your posterous experiment and this conversation with great interest.

Blogging is evolving to allow varied styles - from long essays to picture+200 words or less -- which is good.

The creativity that varied perspectives and technology allow, will lead to a simplification [of the process] and acceleration of sharing thought.

Whether this is a good thing or not - well there will be people on both sides of the fence.

My personal vote is with:

Aggregator - friendfeed
Varied stream - Twitter
Blog - personal [if you're establishing a 'personal' blogging brand] /or posterous [for experimental bloggers + people with the MOST established personal brands]

Eventually what survives are ideas that are easy to use and relevant.

Cheers,

Anita Lobo

I've also been following your Lifestreaming concept with some interest. I should declare up-front that my own blogging has been for reasons of pure self-interest: I use my personal blog mostly as a sandbox to test upgrades and plugins so that I can safely use them on clients blogs. So I'm not really driven by any great need or large audience.

Having said that, it's important for any of us in the communications business to stay ahead of the curve, and the curve seems to have quite a wow in it at the moment. And by 'wow', I mean an even curvier curve. Again, I'm mostly trying to determine if and when lifestreaming will become mainstream, so for the very craven reason of not getting caught too far downstream.

I initially recognized the need to collect all of my various interests in one place, and thought about rejigging my Wordpress installs a la Mike Davidson, using feeds from tumblr and twitter in the main posts, so they could be commented on, etc. But it seems like a lot of work to lasso technologies which may be different sooner than later. And then lately, I've warmed up some cold soup with Friendfeed; for some reason I didn't get at first but now seem strangely attracted to it. So I'd be aggregating an aggregator. Oy.

No, this Posterous thing may be the way to go. It seems to do all the heavy lifting of bringing things together and/or dispersing them to the different channels. But since we (my company) place emphasis on design, I'll also keep the blog evolving and will give it my own design spin.

First, I'm going to lay down for a bit. The room is spinning.

I quit (Wordpress.com) blogging in favour of Twitter/Twitpic. Twitter for my fluid thoughts, Twitic as a kind of persistent whiteboard/sketchbook

I don't need my blogs anymore. I have friendfeed and twitter with thousands of followers. That's enough for me.

Mark Evans offers up another POV here with his 11 reasons why blogs still matter post.

Anita, curious as to why you think Posterous is only good for those with an established brand? Why not make it your only blog? Lots of folks did this with Tumblr too, and since you can point a domain here (like I did), there is no reason why you can't be branded on Posterous.

All good posts here (and on FriendFeed). Jesse, I really like your comments and look forward to reading your content too. I think the one missing ingredient for some will be monetization (a traditional blog would allow ads and that type of content). But if the message is what you want to spread or get, there is nothing wrong with making Posterous your main blog. I think affiliate and ad programs on personal blogs are a waste of time anyway. Personally, I think they dilute ones message and cheapen the blog.

Almost forgot, another benefit of Posterous is the community. I have never found a more involved community where people interact, follow and actually read each other's content and comments. It's not the usual "follower game" here. Even Tumblr encourages quantity over quality with their Tumblarity rating system. And don't even get me started on Twitter and the SUL. Many of the people I have met here provide a lot of value and I learn something new every day (or at least see something interesting)!

Hi Chris

Posterous for established brands/ bloggers is an observation after looking at the twitter/ posterous/ facebook feeds pouring into friendfeed.

If you look at the blogs on friendfeed and do a independent site vs posterous comparison it stands out.

If Garry or Sachin are willing to share an analysis of user profiles, we could get a clearer picture on this.

Like you, I don't think posterous has significant downsides as the primary blog and yes, the community here is more involved than at tumblr and other sites!

Cheers,

Anita Lobo

Anita, I see. I guess it depends on who you subscribe to as I see both types of users - I guess I subscribe to more of the unknowns/lighterweights like myself LOL. But I get your point and understand where it comes from. Thanks - I also think we proved our point on community - in most places, if you did not know me, we might never have this conversation - which I think is neat and certainly added value to my day.

Chris, I also noticed Posterous' "quality over quantity" feeling. But I think it's because the service is young: wait till it gets the size of Tumblr and you'll see the same amount of multimedia overload that you get there.

I don't see blogging as a step backwards, it's seem to be popular at the moment to jump on the dismissive bandwagon of RSS, blogging and now comments. I for one prefer reading a blog post that actually gives me cause for reflection and that I want to share with my followers.