I did have another blog post in mind to write but the news which broke this evening, that Posterous (the platform I am using to write this post) has been acquired by Twitter, has meant a change.

The post on Posterous's own site appears upbeat at first glance, enthusing about the new 'opportunities' and the 'exciting' future ahead, but it is easy to read between the lines. Despite the assurance that Spaces 'will remain up and running without disruption', they are already promising 'ample notice' if the service changes. That means they are certain to make changes, and when you consider that the motive behind the Twitter acquisition was not to buy the product, but to take on the staff, it's clear that those staff will not be focusing on Posterous in the future. The statement goes on to promise 'clear instructions' for users who wish to back up their content or move to another service soon. That does not bode well for the Posterous service as it currently stands. 

The last paragraph reads very much like a 'goodbye' to Posterous users, thanking them for their support and talking about the 'amazing journey' of the past four years. Once again, the conclusion must be that Posterous will be left to wither on the vine while the energy is concentrated on Twitter. 

The reason this matters is because the Posterous site has become popular due to its ease of use, and its ability to accept content via e-mail or web posting. It also features scheduled, cross-posting so you can submit the content once and it will appear wherever else you choose. For instance, this post will go to both my own site at ronniesoo.com and to my Blogger platform, and it will also appear as a link on my Facebook page, my LinkedIn and yes, my Twitter account. You can have more than one blog too, and run them from one account, and you can also point a custom URL to a Posterous site. In fact, I liked it so much that I recommended it to several of my friends, one of whom was looking for a place to continue writing after the demise of MySpace. In short, it made the Internet much easier for everyone, so it is very sad to think it will shortly be left to die off. 

As for Twitter itself, what they propose to do with the staff they've just hired en masse remains to be seen. It's possible they want the team to do something similar within Twitter, perhaps as a way of breaking free of that 140 character limit, but as the product that's already out there does the job perfectly well in my view, that is surely just reinventing the wheel? 

Whatever happens, I'm afraid it's more disruption and more work for bloggers who are regular users of this platform. For all the assurances of the platform remaining available without disruption, they do not say how long that will last and so it is recommended that users do migrate their content elsewhere as soon as Posterous provide directions for them to do so. 

The only good thing I can see in all of this is that it means more work for webmasters!