I’ve decided to embark on the experiment of disabling most of my social network sync/forwarding/cross-post settings and just funneling everything through Posterous. The main idea is to create a single pipeline through which all content is routed, and Posterous is a great service to do so, as long as you’re comfortable giving that service a lot of power.
Several heavy social network using friends have recommended Posterous to me already, but I’ve always felt turned off by the email part. I know email’s convenient and ubiquitous and for the most part accepted by the entire world, but it’s my least favorite place to hang out these days (ok, my voicemail inbox is worse, but barely). I pretty much hate checking my Gmail… a wasteland of starred items that I starred to remind myself to come back to, but never did, and now they make me feel bad about myself every time I log in.
But I digress. Using Posterous isn’t about hanging out in my inbox, it’s simply about using the email protocol to post pretty much anything to anywhere: text, photos, videos, etc., to blogs, Facebook profiles/pages, Twitter, etc. I can access my email with my computer or my mobile phone, and I always have one or both of them on me at all times. The service is a lot more robust than how I’m explaining it, so if you’re befuddled I recommend you read the Posterous FAQ for a very thorough walk-through.
Essentially I’m disabling cross-posting Del.icio.us links to Tumblr, blip.fm posts to Friendfeed, Flickr photos to Facebook, Facebook status updates to OMG I CAN’T KEEP TRACK OF ALL MY CROSS-POSTING ANYMORE, DID IT ORIGINATE IN MY LAST.FM SETTINGS OR MY TWITTER OAUTH, I NEED TO START OVER. See? I’ve gone crazy. So I’m linking all my online accounts to Posterous only, and I’m going to use the Posterous email protocol to send my content exactly where I want. I like experiments! This will be fun!
Here’s how it works:
- *I want to post a photo to Flickr: flickr@myaccount.posterous.com
- *I want to post the same photo to Flickr and Friendfeed: flickr+friendfeed@myaccount.posterous.com
- *I want to post the same piece of content to every service I’ve linked to Posterous: post@myaccount.posterous.com
- *I want to post something to my Posterous account, but not to any of my linked services: posterous@myaccount.posterous.com
And so on.
Now, because I really do belong to a ton of social networks that I use regularly, completely switching up my sharing methods is a little complicated, and I’ve already run into a few stumpers. So I thought this would be a good opportunity to share any little tricks I figure out along the way with all of you that 1) might already be baffling you, or 2) you may come across eventually if you decide to use Posterous the way I’m using it.
My first issue arose when I posted a Photo Booth pic from my computer to Flickr via Posterous email:
As you can see, the subject line of my email posted perfectly as my Flickr photo title, but notice how my Flickr “description” is some lame promotional Posterous code and not what I wrote in the body of that email (it was about my stylish pajama bottoms)? No hard feelings Posterous, I know that’s how you’re getting the word out and all, but… no thanks. I already wrote my own Flickr photo description in the body of the email I sent, and that’s all I want to see.
How to fix it:
In your Flickr account advanced settings on Posterous, you see how Posterous auto-populates your Flickr photo’s description with their own footer, which makes perfect sense. They’re not hiding anything or being devious, and I was able to achieve what I wanted simply by replacing their default code with this:
Now, when I send an email to flickr@myaccount.posterous.com, whatever I post in the subject line will convert to my Flickr title, and whatever I post in the body of my email along with my attached photo will become my Flickr description! It will be as if I uploaded through Flickr directly. Nobody will know. Easy as pumpkin pie, right? (Obviously you can screw around with the codes to get your own desired effect).
More Posterous tips as I discover them along the path of my little experiment. If you use Posterous and have any tricks of your own, please share them with the rest of us. This effer took me all morning. 
November 3rd, 2009 at 1:39 pm
BTW, that code can’t be copied/pasted because it’s actually an image. Sorry. Does Wordpress offer an easy way to strip out code formatting for occasions such as these?
November 3rd, 2009 at 1:54 pm
Try using the
tag pair. I *think* that makes it copyable.Yes, I do believe it works.
November 3rd, 2009 at 2:11 pm
I think you can wrap it in
blocks...Great tip on posterous! Hope everything goes well health-wise for you as well.
November 3rd, 2009 at 2:12 pm
LOL, I made my own message be code. Wrap it in blocks with “code” being inside the lt/gts…
November 3rd, 2009 at 2:13 pm
It’s nice that Posterous offers this feature. I wish that Brightkite would do the same thing.
November 3rd, 2009 at 2:31 pm
Trying it:
{{snippet}}
November 3rd, 2009 at 2:37 pm
Nope – code just formats it nicely. You still need to write out the <p> to make a “p” tag.
November 3rd, 2009 at 2:43 pm
Great post sarah! =]
November 3rd, 2009 at 2:46 pm
So many folks are hanging out around posterous right now, and for a lot of folks like me (with various tumblogs and person websites), it’s difficult to justify another mini blogging/posting/sharing account. Now that I see it’s potential as a simple sharing tool for all the services which I already use, I might give it a try and use your tips.
Great post Sarah! =]
November 3rd, 2009 at 3:06 pm
VERY COOL SARAH!
I don’t have enough irons in the social networking fire to fully appreciate this but I’m still going to try it! I’ve heard you, Leo and Amber comment on it and my curiosity demands that I give it a go now too!
November 4th, 2009 at 3:07 am
I’m with you on the account disabling, Sarah. I still have Facebook and Twitter auto-posting, but it needs to stop. Friendfeed was the bulk of it for me, but I’ve since disabled. It’s interesting to see how you’ve taken to Posterous, I’ve retreated from it although perhaps prematurely. Admittedly, I like the idea, just not fully wrapping my head around it yet.
November 4th, 2009 at 11:01 am
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Sarah Lane, Sarah Lane @ Current, Lavelle Mueller, Andrew YeagerBuckley, Adrian McMillan and others. Adrian McMillan said: RT @currenttech How to customize your Flickr photo description when sending via Posterous email. | Current Tech Blog http://bit.ly/4s2n1a [...]
November 4th, 2009 at 11:04 pm
I hate that I can’t adjust my footer when posting photos to Facebook. That’s one of my largest complaints. That and the fact I can’t embed javascript so I can turn it into my main blog.