Posterous leveraging Tumblr themes
I have experimented at various times with both Tumblr and Posterous which are hosted blog services. I tend to view them as useful services for a scrapbook style blog, a linkblog, a lifestream or even a fully fledged blog. If I was starting a blog today, I would probably use one or the other.
Posterous, in particular, has been getting a lot of coverage recently and I like the ease of use, the 'Post by Email' facility and continue to follow developments with interest.
I often describe Posterous as a 'blog for people who don't want a blog'. For example, Uncle Harry doesn't even know what a blog is and certainly doesn't need a blog. However, Uncle Harry is also perfectly capable of attaching photos of his sailing holiday in Greece and emailing them to his daughter, brother, wife, friends and colleagues. He could do this using Posterous and, lo and behold, without even knowing it, he now has a blog.
Posterous is a hosted blog service and until recently, was limited to a single, universal theme. This didn't particularly bother me as I quite liked the plain, minimal looking Posterous design.
I also felt the default Posterous theme actually helped to reinforce the Posterous 'brand'. Whenever you encountered a Posterous blog, you could immediately recognise it as such.
However, custom themes were a frequently requested enhancement by (potential) users so Posterous have finally added support for your own themes including pre-built designs, custom header images, full HTML customisation and interestingly, the use of Tumblr themes.
Now I suspect that supporting 'Tumblr' style themes out of the box was a master stroke. Posterous users immediately have a wealth of pre-built, attractive looking themes available off the shelf, free of charge.
Tumblr have even helpfully created a theme repository for Posterous users. You just find a Tumblr theme you like, copy and paste the HTML, dump it into Posterous and you're done.
You now have a lovely, stylish professional looking Posterous blog that looks identical to a lovely, stylish professional looking Tumblr blog.
I love the way TechCrunch uses the the term 'leverage' to describe the addition of this (almost seamless - some blocks are not supported) integration with the Tumblr theme engine.
Of course, all themes are just HTML and CSS but I can't help wondering whether the Tumblr development team and their own band of loyal and passionate users feel quite the same way about this wonderful, new addition from Posterous.
strategies for making friends on social networks
Early Jurassic - Mum takes you to playgroup, kicking and screaming and your friends are forced upon you. Free milk at 11 am.
Cretaceous - Primary school. You go round to Robert's for tea and Robert comes round to your house for tea. Painfully shy in female company.
Middle Monolithic - Secondary school - you hang out with the kids who play football and avoid those who threaten you with knives at the bus stop.
Triassic - Football, gigs, pubs. The best time of your life. With the best friends of your life. None of them will ever do FaceBook but that doesn't matter.
Late Mesozoic - University - no real strategy here. If someone stands their round, then that's good enough.
Web 0.1 (alpha) - Usenet, flame fests, email using elm on an amber VT100. Avoid people who use VMS at all costs.
Web 1.0 - IRC is just like a Friday night in the pub. There will be fights at closing time.
Web 1.0 - surf the internet, send large attachments (amusing photos) to colleagues every Friday afternoon.
Web 2.0 - social networking. Accept blindly absolutely any friend request. Approach complete strangers and ask them to be your 'special friends'. Friendship isn't friendship - it's a bragging contest.
Web 2.0 (beta) - Follow Scoble's example and be slightly more selective. Cull thousands of so-called 'friends' in futile attempt to avoid information overload.
Web 3.0 - Twitter - the endless, interminable byte stream of inane drivel. Until Stephen Fry signs up which makes it all alright. Stalk celebrities.
Web 3.0 RC3 - Finally it dawns on you.
- People on Posterous mainly like talking about Posterous
- People on FriendFeed mainly like singing the praises of FriendFeed.
- People on Twitter mainly like talking about Twitter. Repeat ad infinitum.
- People on identi.ca love identi.ca and open source and despise the evil borg.
- People in UK tend to have more friends in the UK
- You are on first names terms with the developers of Disqus and they fix stuff - just for you.
- If you're a keen photographer, try Flickr.
- If you like football, seek out people who like football.
- If someone Like's a post/tweet you wrote, it's possible (but not certain) you will like their outputs.
- If someone lives on your road, it doesn't mean they're your friend. There's a good reason you haven't had your neighbours round for coffee since last Christmas.
- If people actively dislike your output, it is less likely they will be a good friend.
- If people say 'Great, interesting, thought provoking post', it's likely they are trying to sell you a 'Penis Enlargement Kit' (or worse).
Web 4.0 - The end of the world. Social Networking dies and we all adjourn to the pub (again) and play board games.
product minimalism
Garry Tan, a developer for Posterous (a simple but powerful blog platform), wrote a brilliant post about product design.
Are there any questions? I said yes -- one last one: "When do we decide to remove features?"
In a similar vein, Amit Agarwal asks 'What’s Common Between an iPod and Google ?' Answer: Simplicity.
If I had a cube, I would print both articles out and pin them up.
identica poised to pounce on Pownce
Pownce (a microblogging service) has been sold to SixApart and decided to close the service on December 15 which is a nice early Christmas present for all their users - both freeloaders (like me) and 'Pro' users who pay $20 per year.
Although I have a dormant Pownce account, I don't actively use the service. However, I find it odd that Pownce have decided to close the service and provide all their users with just two weeks notice to extract all their data and find another home.
The Pownce blog claims that:'we believe we’ll come back with something much better in 2009'
However, that 'belief' must be pretty weak and the date in 2009 must be a long way away. Otherwise, why on earth would Pownce and SixApart force all the existing Pownce users to evaluate and migrate to alternative services if a viable, better alternative was being planned.
Will those users really come running back to SixApart after being kicked out ? When they're already been forced to move once ? After the way they've been treated ?
Surely, it would have been better to do what Google did with Jaiku. Absolutely nothing. Leave the service exactly as it is with no fixes, no improvements, no additional services or functionality. That way, the hardcore, diehard users will remain on Pownce and, at least, you have a hope of getting those users converted onto the new SixApart product (whenever it is available).There are a few obvious choices for Pownce users:
- Twitter - more stability and increased uptime recently but limited to 140 characters (unlike Pownce) and inferior support for file sharing.
- Tumblr - probably the closest match in terms of functionality (no 140 character limit, support for media posts (images, links, audio, videos)
- FriendFeed - includes most of Pownce functionality.
- identi.ca - micro-blogging service but OpenSource so the opportunity exists to run a separate Laconica instance for Pownce users and potentially support the Pownce API (and hence all existing desktop Pownce clients).
- Posterous - supports MP3, photos, audio files and posting by email.
In fact, identi.ca have already responded to the imminent demise of Pownce and started work on the ability to import Pownce feeds into identi.ca and are actively looking for developers to assist with providing a Pownce compatible API.
However, I suspect the main issues here for disillusioned Pownce users aren't purely technical and won't necessarily depend on the advantages and disadvantages of the alternative services. The key factor will probably be the 'community' which has now been suddenly and forcibly broken up.
I suspect most Pownce users are on Pownce for a reason - they like the Pownce service and they like the community they have forged on Pownce. Consequently, I suspect a significant number will simply migrate wherever the majority of their friends go to or maintain multiple presences.
I also suspect that most Pownce users may well have already considered (and rejected) alternatives that were around (Twitter, Tumblr, FriendFeed) when they originally chose to sign up with Pownce which may be another positive factor in identi.ca's favour.