Joel asked how I decide when to use posterous and when to use this blog. Here goes:
Take the last few things I've shared on each of the blogging platforms I use: Twitter, posterous, and Blogger.
The last link I shared on Twitter was a link to a YouTube video of miniature ninjas unboxing the new Google Nexus One. It was just a fun link to share. I wasn't really hoping to have a conversation about it. There's already a conversation about the video on YouTube.
When I share a link to someone else's blog on Twitter -- as opposed to posterous -- I'm also trying to direct conversation to that person's blog. Of course, there could be a conversation on Twitter, but if I share it on posterous, I open up the chance that I'll be the one hosting the conversation instead of the person who wrote the post. There are times when I share something from someone's blog on posterous, but it doesn't happen very often.
With posterous, the most recent item I shared was a picture I took with my iPhone. That's my favorite use for posterous, sharing photos and videos. It's too easy not to. I take a picture, send it to post@posterous.com and it goes to posterous, Twitter, Facebook, and Picasaweb. Posterous also does a nice job of sending comments written in posterous to other networks.
Before the image, I shared an excerpt from a book I'm reading, They Still Can't Spell? I think this is the use Joel was asking about. The reason I chose posterous instead of my blog at RussGoerend.com was because I was sharing someone else's work, without any summary or reflection by me. I try to keep my RussGoerend.com blog for things I've at least somewhat thought through. When I finish reading this book, I'll probably write a blog post about it. I posted an excerpt from the book on posterous today to test the water, so to speak.
Another example of this is when I shared an excerpt from a recent Seth Godin blog post. Sharing with posterous's bookmarklet gives readers a selection of what I think is interesting about the post, while also providing a link back to Seth's original post.
I share on this blog when I've got something I've come up with. I don't mean "come up with" as in "on my own" because I'm a believer that all knowledge is socially constructed. Everything I think is influenced by someone else. Conversations, media, etc. That's material for another post, though.
One other thing that plays a role, but is totally based on my gut, is length. When I started writing this, I was going to post it to posterous, but at some point I realized it just felt more natural on my blog.
The point is that there are different uses for different tools -- shocker, I know.
I'm interested in how you see yourselves using these different tools.
