Posterous is Dead, What Should I Do?
I've been galvanized to write this because of the upcoming demise of Posterous - I've got a bunch of personal sites there and I spent most of yesterday researching this stuff and I figured it might be useful to others. Plus I couldn't sleep because I kept comparing the merits and drawbacks of each system in my head (yes, this is what I lose sleep over). I also go through a version this process for some portion of my freelance projects (mostly small businesses). There is no one perfect solution and I'm a firm believer in choosing the right tool for the job; why use a cleaver when a paring knife is really what you need? Although things change so rapidly that by next year this could be completely out of date.
[Who said blogs were dead? Note that I am focused on talking about systems that are meant for blogging or maintaining a web site in the more traditional sense rather than subcompact publishing. You can talk to my friends at 29pco about that!]
I do not take choosing a publishing system lightly because once you've chosen, you tend to be stuck with it for a while. Before I even start looking, I have a loose matrix of characteristics that I evaluate. In no particular order:
Data Control: We talk a lot about the cloud and how awesome it is, and all of these services have popped up to make it so easy. Offloading it though means that it could all be gone one day (see Posterous). For my personal blogs/projects I'm now leaning towards hosting everything myself, but there are definitely times when I'd rather pay and let a service deal with it.
Data Durability: Is the system going to totally munge the data to the point where I can't export/import it to another system? Does it mangle my content by adding unnecessary HTML tags? How much work would it take to move it someplace else? Will I have access to my data 10 years down the road, or is it just going to turn into the minidisc of data formats? The older I get the more I want to be sure that I'm future proofing my data. On the flip side, there are times when I don't want every single thing archived and it's OK if it goes into the ether.
Maintenance and Performance: How much time/technical knowledge does it take to maintain the system? How vulnerable is it to spamming? Are updates available on a regular basis, is it being actively developed, and is there any support? Do sites tend to load quickly, or does it go at a snail's pace? How much tweaking will it require to get the site to feel snappy?
Templating Environment: I try to estimate the learning curve on the template language and how flexible it is. I look for sample templates or themes to see what can be built and how clean the markup is. A big plus to me is the ability to deploy via git. Is it going to require twenty plugins to get the functionality I want? Or does most of it come out of the box? And in the end, how much fun is it to build?
User Experience: This is so, so important. It doesn't matter if your data is durable if the system is so esoteric or difficult to use that no data is created in the first place. I think about how many people are going to be making content, the level of "internet" they've achieved if they're new to any given system, is it FUN to write in the system, and the amount of effort it takes to upload and maintain assets. I also consider the current workflow and if it needs to be improved.
Cost: How much am I (or my client) willing to pay on a monthly basis for hosting and/or services?
So this is generally what I think about before I even start researching systems. Up next: thinking about all this stuff in the context of my personal sites.
