I started tinkering with Posterous and am really loving its simple and ridiculously easy-to-use interface. Its post-by-e-mail feature is so simple and yet offers much more functionality than the post-by-e-mail function in WordPress. You can even post to other sites — such as Flickr, Facebook, and other blogging platforms — via e-mail through Posterous (though I’m still trying to get it to work correctly with this blog). Even more impressively, you can pick and choose which platforms to autopost to just by combining specific e-mail addresses (i.e.: flickr+wordpress@posterous.com).
I have been aware of Posterous for a while but hadn’t started playing with it until recently. After all, I already have two blogs on WordPress and accounts on Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, and Tumblr (and probably a couple others I’m not remembering). The last thing I need is another blogging platform to maintain. But Posterous’ idiot-proof simplicity has won me over. Platforms such as WordPress have made blogging relatively easy for a sizable segment of the population, but I think it’s going to be something like Posterous that will make blogging ubiquitous by making it even simpler to use by making it possible to post more than basic text using just e-mail — a platform that almost everyone is familiar with.
I love my WordPress blogs and am not about to give up the power and control that platform offers, but I am looking for ways to incorporate Posterous into my online activities. Right now, I envision myself using Posterous mostly as a one-stop posting depot for my myriad other accounts when I’m traveling. I try to blog daily or close to that frequency when I’m on leisure trips, like I did when I went to China in 2008-09. However, I’m usually doing so much stuff every day during the trips that by the time I get back to the hotel room, I’m pretty tired and don’t want to spend a whole lot of time writing, toning a few pictures, waiting for them to upload to Flickr, and then insert them into my post — all on an older laptop with nowhere near the speed of my desktop. With Posterous, I can tone the pictures and write my post offline, then send everything in one e-mail and let Posterous autopost to multiple platforms for me. Also, Posterous would make it easy for me to quickly send in random things I come across using my phone and post them on my blog or Flickr account. I think I’ll try to use this workflow for my trip to Atlanta in a few months, and if it goes well, for my visit to England later in the year as well.
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