Goodbye to Posterous

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I wrote something in late 2012 about leaving Posterous. It was getting treacherous, and the website was often difficult, and I decided I’d leave it.

 

 

But – here’s the thing – when it works, it’s wonderful! It autoposts to everything! It’s so convenient!

 

 

So I decided to think about it for a while.

 

 

Well, there’s no more thinking to be done. Posterous is done, as of March 31: finished completely. Twitter is absorbing its staff and its servers.

 

 

What does this mean?

 

 

Well, it means that I’m posting this blog in five places rather than six. My method currently is this: I post these blogs on Posterous and Wordpress, and they automatically post to all of the other Internet properties (Blogger, Tumblr, Facebook, and Twitter).

 

 

Now what?

 

 

I began with Posterous because some of my favorite celebrity bloggers, like Mark Bittman, used Posterous. It seemed reliable and steady, and the create-post screens were pretty straightforward. Also: it autoposted everywhere.

 

 

Except that, once in a while, it got uppity and refused to do anything at all.

 

 

Irritating!

 

 

Well, no need to worry about that now. For those of you (not many) who read me or who subscribe to me on Posterous: please move over to futureworldblog.wordpress.com.

 

 

Rest in peace, Posterous.

 

 

Change of site, Jan 1 2013: a heads-up

To all my good friends on Posterous (and on Blogger too):



I have been having nasty problems with Posterous lately. I publish my blog there, and Posterous used to be nice enough to post it to Facebook, and Blogger, and WordPress, and Tumblr. Lately, however, Posterous has been very cranky; it won't do WordPress and Tumblr at all anymore (this has been flickering on and off for several months now).



So I am very seriously thinking about moving my main blogsite to WordPress. 



It's a nice site, and there are lots of folks over there I like; most of my favorite blogs are on WordPress. They won't let me upload MP3 files, as Posterous does, but I have found a workaround for that.



Also: Posterous autoposts directly to Blogger, and I have a number of readers on Blogger. And I don't want to lose them. (For some reason, WordPress won't autopost to Blogger. Go figure).



Anyway, on January 1 2013, I am going to go to WordPress and Tumblr (and Facebook) exclusively, I think. Unless things in the Posterous environment change significantly.



If you subscribe to me on either Posterous or Blogger, please do me the enormous favor of going to futureworldblog.wordpress.com and subscribing to me there. It's a very nice site, trust me.



And everything will be just fine.

Social media (and especially Pinterest)

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Social media allow us to craft our own image and present it to the world, in ways that only a few artists and writers were able to do in the centuries before us. More than that: we can do it over and over again, in various ways. We don’t have to present ourselves on Facebook in the same way that we do on LinkedIn, or Tumblr, or Twitter.

 

 

Take me, for example. My Facebook persona is pretty vanilla. I repost this blog to my Facebook feed, but I suspect very few of my sixty-odd “friends” read it. And, after all, why would they? Facebook Loren is mostly 1970s Pacific Northwest Loren. A large percentage of my Facebook friends are my school acquaintances from Battle Ground, and various Pacific Northwest relatives. As you can imagine, their politics vary considerably from mine, in most (though not all) cases. So: we stick to safe topics, and harmless photos, and nostalgia.

 

 

LinkedIn Loren is very dull: he’s just a brief resume.  He has a reasonable number of connections, but (since he’s not actively looking for a job) he’s not out there roaming the LinkedIn network very much. Mostly I use LinkedIn to find out what my various work acquaintances are doing nowadays. Now and then I’m amused to find that some of them are exaggerating their titles, and their experience, and their education, and their accomplishments. (But I won’t rat them out. Not here, anyway. Give me a call, and I’ll tell you all about it.)

 

 

Twitter Loren is a nonentity. This blog reposts there too, but I seldom look at Twitter; it’s too busy, too full of chatter.

 

 

Blog Loren is the same person on Posterous, Tumblr, Blogger, and WordPress, as this goes out to all four. Three of them – Posterous, Blogger, and WordPress – are full of windy pontificators like me, so I’m just a face in the crowd there. I’m not really at home on Tumblr, which is really more about images and memes and being cutting-edge. I like Tumblr, though, more as a subscriber (and occasional reposter) than as a contributor. Few people on Tumblr read me, but I read and look at lots of people on Tumblr, and enjoy them very much.

 

 

Then there is (or was) Pinterest Loren.

 

 

I heard about Pinterest, and decided to try it. I was sort of charmed by it; I liked the mosaic layout of the pages, and the variety, and the ease with which you can browse, and the way you can click through a pinned image to an original website. In no time at all, Pinterest Loren had lots of stuff pinned: funny pictures, and cute puppies and kitties, and cute G-rated men, and pretty landscapes, and . . .

 

 

OMG.

 

 

Pinterest Loren was a sixteen-year-old girl.

 

 

I deactivated Pinterest Loren not long ago. I don’t think he/she will be back anytime soon.

 

 

I think I did the world a favor.

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