140Char

When it comes to 140 character microblogging, Twitter has established itself as the leader. In hosted blogging, Blogger leads the way. And if you’re hosting your own blog, then Wordpress is the most common choice (as used for this blog!)

And until recently, the clear choice for someone who wanted more space and multimedia than 140 characters, but didn’t want a ‘full-on’ blog was Tumblr. I set up my own Tumblr blog fairly quickly and didn’t really develop it much, but good friend Angus has taken it a bit fair bit further.

But all that seems to have changed recently, as Posterous has launched a full scale attack of features, and has already inspired Steve Rubel to write about how the microblogging/lifestreaming approach has changed the way he blogs.

While Tumblr has introduced a popularity ranking system, Posterous appears to be everywhere. Recent updated include becoming an alternative to posting images on Twitpic and a way to turn email lists into group blogs.

Now you can import your blog to Posterous from any of the major publishing platforms – including Tumblr.

And upload video from the Apple iPhone 3G S to multiple social sites, including Twitter and Facebook.

Posterous seems to be benefitting from the ‘posting by email’ side of the site, which makes it an easy and effective way to get content online. Although Tumblr has a similar feature, it’s far less prominent when you’re comparing the services at face value. And Posterous is also targetting the distribution of that content, which is something Tumblr doesn’t seem to be doing as much. It’s very much in the vein of Twitter and Friendfeed in making it quick and easy to create, aggregate, and share.

(I’m also available on Posterous, but I’m only just starting to use it).

In fact, the only killer feature that both sites are missing is the one that I firmly believe has kept Blogger popular in the face of Wordpress.com, and also Tumblr/Posterous – the ability to quickly and easily install Google Adsense adverts on a hosted platform. It’s not the sole reason for someone choosing to blog, as we always like to focus on the desire for self-expression, but it’s an important issue for a lot of people. Even if common sense suggests hardly anyone will make any significant revenue, the hope factor is as important as in buying a lottery ticket!

If I ran Tumblr right now, I’d be introducing a similarly quick and simple Adsense system to Bloggers as quickly as I could!