ChrisPosterous

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Google Wave Preview

Having some trouble with this video on iPhone (even though it should play with YouTube). Apple really needs to fix the no flash on iPhone dilemma. This is annoying at best. Sorry if you cannot see this on the iPhone version of my website.

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GoogleAtWork - new drag, drop hide labels

Via Twitter @GoogleAtWork

Here's a cool new feature I noticed when logging into Gmail tonight. Little tab next to each message that lets you drag and drop onto a Gmail label, which have been moved up in position on the lefthand menus.

Original content: Gmail Labels: drag & drop, hiding, and more http://bit.ly/TgY5d

Original Tweet: http://twitter.com/GoogleAtWork/status/2428016160
Sent via TweetDeck (www.tweetdeck.com)

Sent from my iPhone

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My revised blogging workflow

I have received several requests to talk about my current blogging workflow and since it has changed recently (actually simplified quite a bit) I figured it would be a good idea to put it all down here for everyone to review and comment if they like. My original plan was to segment my publishing by size of post/type of post. This meant long blogs (or pretty much more than 3 paragraphs) would go to Blogger (my tool of choice at the time) while short stuff, link shares and lifestream content would go to FriendFeed.

For a while this worked well but I soon came to realize that Blogger was limiting me in terms of layout, plugins and "owning" my own data. So I moved the main blog to WordPress and hosted the site at Laughing Squid (a decision I am very happy with). I have full control over my blog now, I love my hosting company, and was able to settle on a clean theme for web display as well as WPTouch for display on the iPhone.

Since my blog is self hosted on my own domain, I wanted to make sure that anything I wrote, captured or re-blogged would be there at cjsparno.com. This would create a brand (not so much for monetizing my content, but for getting all my stuff under one name). This created a bit of a challenge in that FriendFeed was also a place to store larger content and now I had two parallels conversations going on with my readers, one that I owned and another that become difficult to manage. Plus, I was re-broadcasting to Twitter and then later Facebook, creating some double posts due to the way FriendFeed was re-broadcasting content posted to Facebook and to Twitter.

So, even early on I realized that most of the time I would be creating a mix of original content and re-blogs, and I would want it in a permanent place that I owned (my own domain). I also wanted that content announced on Twitter when I created it, and grabbed by FriendFeed to take advantage of its excellent commenting capability.

At about this time (about 2 months ago), a friend, Kris Colvin, got me interested in Tumblr based on the work she had done with it. I really liked the way I could create a lifestream with Tumblr and also loved the bookmarklet that let me grab "stuff" while surfing. But once again, I lost control of the "entry point" for my content. Some was on Wordpress, most was on FriendFeed and a growing amount of it was on Tumblr. So I created a Tumblr page and embedded a recent tumbles widget which partly solved the issue, but still was clunky at best.

Finally, I came across a post from Steve Rubel on how he had decided to move the bulk of his blogging to Posterous, so I made the decision to check it out. And I was immediately hooked. Two things made this a killer solution for me - first, I could use my favorite tool, Gmail, to create content. And second, Posterous could re-purpose this content everywhere I needed it to go. So, problem solved. And so far, I have no regrets. Here is how the workflow came together:

1. Any content (long, short, clip, media, pics etc) is put into Posterous - this is either via email, via iPhone email, or via bookmarklet. I can even create the content right from my Posterous website if I want.

2. Posterous cross-posts immediately to Wordpress (www.cjsparno.com) and to Twitter (@cjsparno). This means that readers of my main blog see it within seconds of the post happening, whether on the web, or on an iPhone.

3. FriendFeed grabs posts from Twitter.

That's it. I purposely removed feeds from and to Facebook since that app for me is for keeping up with friends and family (most of them get confused by my posts anyway LOL). Just for the heck of it, I created a fan page for my blog on Facebook, so technically, those that care can see all my posts to www.cjsparno.com there as well. But this is outside of the actual workflow.

I am very happy with Posterous, and with my simplified workflow. I can actually concentrate on writing now and not even think about where it will appear (or if it will appear in the right places). Do you have a similar flow, or ideas to enhance this one? I'd love to hear from you. And enjoy blogging with Posterous!

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ShakeItPhoto - Polaroid for your iPhone

via shakeitphoto.com

Freakin awesome iPhone photo app - you shake the shots "Polaroid"-style to develop them, but I think they look more like Holga shots (which I love). Available on the iPhone App Store.

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Using Posterous every day

One of the things I thought was neat about Posterous is that it removes one of the major annoying barriers to creating a post - namely, logging into Wordpress Admin and creating one. Yes, I know there is a bookmarklet, but it only helps me when I am browsing a site I want to capture at the moment. If I want to write something original, I really dislike opening another browser tab and firing up the editor. Especially if its not going to be a super long post.

Email on the other hand is something I am in all day long. It has become my word processor, and to be honest, I can't remember the last time I fired up Word. I do everything in Gmail - send emails, chat, maintain my calendar and tasks. It integrates well with my iPhone and its the one app that if it were gone, I would be lost. So Posterous is very handy in that it allows me to continue to use my main communication tool but now in a new and expanded way. In an interface I am very familiar with.

In this post, I am also trying out a tip I received from another Posterous user, Scott Gould (thanks Scott) for including pics mid post, like I can do with the WordPress editor. If all goes well, you should see a picture here of Google Chrome...

Once again, Google comes to the rescue with Google Labs having just what I needed to make Gmail even more useful and enjoyable. There are some interesting parallels between the current Google user experience and the Apple user experience - stuff just seems to work and there seems to be a tool that anticipates my needs when I need it rather than some crazy workaround I have to figure out. I feel a post coming soon on that topic.

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feedly: a magazine-like start page

via feedly.com

Wow, amazing product. If you have not tried on FF3.5, then go and do it now. Extremely high quality, wonderful interface, amazing its free. http://www.feedly.com/

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What Predicts The Ability To Innovate? : Some Perspectives From Pixar

NASA had a problem. What's the screening criteria for a job that's never been done before - like going to the moon? Namely how do you find those guys (and it was guys then) who have the highest predictive chance of success at something that has never been done before? They found test/fighter pilots. But in more general terms, they found a talent pool of people who had failed and recovered. (It's rather apparent what happened to those who had failed and NOT recovered.) The generalized criteria: Error recovery (meaning resiliency and adaptability) and NOT failure avoidance.

via thinkingoutloud.com

Excellent article on hiring and selection.

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Posterous vs. Tumblr: A Head to Head

via mashable.com

Great head to head comparison of Posterous vs Tumblr. As a user of both myself, this is a close call for me. Still like the Tumblr dashboard, but really like the convenience of posting from email and the added bonus of easy cross posting (where Tumblr is the lightweight). On Mashable.