Once Tumblr’s distinguished competition, Posterous has kind of fallen behind the tumble blogging giant in terms of popularity and buzz. In that battle, we can comfortably say that Tumblr came out on top. But Posterous marched on and didn’t stop their vision of letting people blog and share content more while working less.
Spaces
Just a few months ago, Posterous launched Spaces, which is pretty much the old Posterous blogging platform that still focuses on simplicity and ease of use but with an added focus on sharing photos in a more intimate manner. It was sort of like a major re-branding effort but it still failed to catch the attention of the masses.
Joining the Flock
A few hours ago, Twitter has announced that it has acquired Posterous. Both Twitter and Posterous have released their individual announcements on their respective blogs and we just can’t help but notice that both announcements share an identical paragraph:
Posterous Spaces will remain up and running without disruption. We’ll give users ample notice if we make any changes to the service. For users who would like to back up their content or move to another service, we’ll share clear instructions for doing so in the coming weeks.
It’s still not clear if Posterous Spaces will survive this acquisition but reading Twitter’s announcement hints at the fact that they acquired Posterous for the people and not necessarily the technology. Looks like the Posterous people will be working to “build a better Twitter” for all of us and not a more interesting Posterous.
What are we losing?
Let’s just say that Posterous Spaces is shutting down soon, would we miss it? It allows for multiple Spaces (blogs), each can be customized separately with themes and even a custom domain. Privacy for each space can also be modified in the settings. Tumblr has us pretty much covered on this front.
What we will probably miss about Posterous Spaces is the autopost feature that automatically publishes your Posterous Spaces content to your other social networking accounts. We’ll also miss sending content via email hassle-free. We will miss the efficiency and simplicity, as well as the kind of flexibility that even Tumblr can’t touch.
In terms of content, it looks like the Posterous folks are already preparing a way for users to download their stuff off their Spaces. There seems to be no reason for users to worry about losing their content in the near future. Let’s just hope that it is as painless and quick as the process of importing content from other platforms such as Tumblr, Blogger, WordPress, and TwitPic.
What does this mean for the other blogging platforms ands the rest of the Internet?
We’re guessing it would not mean a lot to the likes of Tumblr, Blogger, and WordPress. Those three blogging platforms are pretty much the kings of the blogging hill and the eventual loss of a less prominent platform would mean close to nothing to them. The blogging world will move on, and on a larger picture, the Internet may not even remember this in a few months especially with newer Internet darling hogging the spotlight like Pinterest. Hey, we can’t have a blog post without mentioning Pinterest. It’s the unwritten rule.
