I think this is a mistake - you're completely relying on others to own your content. If any of them go down that content's gone forever. - Jesse Stay

BTW, you can find Wordpress plugins that do the auto-posting on self-hosted Wordpress installations. - Jesse Stay

Jesse, don't you post to posterous via e-mail? Seems like everything you create will at least be in your Sent folder. - Akiva Moskovitz

Akiva, it just seems like you're losing control by doing that. I can post to my blog via e-mail as well with the right plugins. - Jesse Stay

Jesse, true. I'm just wondering if something like posterous might be a good solution for people who have had their urge to fully blog sapped away by sites like FriendFeed. I barely post anywhere now but often wish I had something more flexible than FriendFeed but without all of the hassle and overhead of running a WordPress blog. People don't seem to complain about giving up e-mail to Google; why is posterous different? - Akiva Moskovitz

That's a change, but have just started utilizing them as well in addition so it's easy to see why. - James Stratford

Akiva, I'm trying to bring more of the FriendFeed, Twitter, etc. conversation over to my personal blog, personally. IMO that's something e-mail can't backup - the conversations are what I'm trying to own even more than the content. - Jesse Stay

Jesse, ah, yeah, that's a great point. I didn't even consider the comments. You would almost think that there was a business idea in here somewhere: some kind of cross-platform/cross-site back-up solution for people who blogs and comments strewn all over the Internet. - Akiva Moskovitz

Its difficult to control the formatting in posterous: its great for photos plus captions, but will you be attempting to publish long-form essays or other articles there too? I use posterous/tumblr for quick little things and blogger for longer articles. - DGentry

Akiva, technically, you could use Disqus or Backtype to do that, but again, I want it all happening around my blog and my brand. I want control, not another company to control. - Jesse Stay

Technically you could use Disqus or Backtype, but that is not the easiest implementation and then the commenters need accounts, don't they? I agree with Akiva, there is a great need for an easy product that could integrate disparate comment threads and bring them back to a blog. - Laura Norvig

I don't even necessarily want them in a blog. I want them in some kind of format that I can store them, manipulate them, and/or re-consume them without having to rely on all of the original source sites/formats. I'm talking about a back-up system and not an import system. - Akiva Moskovitz

Laura, the commenters don't need Disqus accounts. See Fred Wilson's breakdown: http://www.avc.com/a_vc... - Bruce Lewis

@DG I will be. Try posting to it from GMail. - Steve Rubel

One thing. Posterous converts all embedded media links into internal references, so you will NOT be able to get your content off their servers if anything ever goes wrong. Go into the source view of one your posts on Posterous which includes a YouTube video or whatever, and you'll see what I mean. - Marlin Forbes

And another thing, you want control over your brand? Posterous doesn't allow much in the way of customization of the blog design. Last time I used it, every blog on their system looked exactly the same. Way to stand out from the crowd. Wanna adjust the behaviour of the blog by adding plugins? No can do. I like the idea, but if the only reason you're doing it is for the auto-posting by e-mail, then there's loads of ways of doing that without losing control over your content. - Marlin Forbes

Posterous SEO has room for improvement. They are aware of this but have no immediate plans to address this. Just something to consider. - Jauder Ho

You can also see your lifestream here: http://ff.amplifeeder.com/user... - Paul Kinlan

@JH how? - Steve Rubel from email

@Robert Zemanta is great, but why is "look more like a blogpost" a desireable trait? - Wade Dorrell

@Jesse I agree with everything you are saying... but regarding ownership -- what about all the content you pump into FF, FB, and twitter? you don't own that - andy brudtkuhl

Jesse and Andy - As I understand it, content you create is yours. But Steve would be relying on Posterous to display that content. A couple of backup strategies come to mind. It's there in your email, nicely backed up. You could autopost that content to Tumblr or, say, a Wordpress.com blog, where it will be there as a live backup. Comments, though, are for now stuck on Posterous, and it would require screen scraping to retrieve them. I don't know if/when the Posterous guys intend to make them exportable. - Eric Johnson

Actually, the Posterous API supports export of posts, media *and comments*. So with a little scripting, you can take it all with you should you need to leave. http://posterous.com/api... - Eric Johnson

Good debate here with very valid points (re: control, SEO, etc.). I would say that Posterous (or Tumblr) should only be 1 of the many elements of your social media presence. Can see Steve's need for a shorter outlet though, as I've been using Posterous myself in this way for the last 6 months, as a "Quick Hits" outlet to post excerpts and brief responses to - http://alexschleber.posterous.com (granted, some people have felt like they'll just post those same items to their main blog, but I wasn't quite ready for that). Compare the integration of a Tumblr RSS feed into http://longtail.com ("Tidbits"). There def. is a place for a "mini-blog" in "life-streaming/mind-casting", and on top of that, Posterous' Sachin and Garry are open and responsive to suggestions. - Alex Schleber

I agree with those who do not agree: you lose conreol, tracking data, referrers etc. You have far less conreol over the communications (and gaining that is the main reasin to blog anyways ;) ) - oliver gassner

Oliver that's not the case with Posterous. - Steve Rubel from email