The urgent need for news

In January I wrote about the way that social media was helping with the aid efforts in the aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti. I had no way of knowing at the time that just a few short weeks later I’d be using my personal social networks to try and track members of my own extended family caught up in an earthquake elsewhere in the world. But on Saturday morning I opened my eyes at about 8am and had a conversation with my husband (who was checking his crackberry - an early morning habit) that went something like this:

Him: “There’s just been a big earthquake in Chile - 8.8 on the Richter scale.”

Me: “Oh no.”

Him: “Epicentre in somewhere called . . . Concepcion?”

Me: “Oh god no. That’s where the family are!”

To cut a long story short, part of my extended family is Chilean: four generations - grandparents, children, grandchildren and great grandchildren who all live in Chiguayante, just outside Concepcion. Fourteen family members in total.

I spent the rest of the weekend glued to my computer as I took on the task of “social media monitoring” and quite a lot of “outreach” on Facebook and Twitter on behalf of the family, whilst others desperately tried the “direct marketing” approach of phoning and emailing.

The happy ending is that all 14 of the family are safe and together. We established this via desperate messages left on the walls of family of family and friends of friends on Facebook. While mobile and internet connections are slowly being restored within Chile, it will be a while before telephone connections with the rest of the world are sorted out. But with a Tweet here and a Facebook status update there, we’re getting the picture that they are managing to get by drinking water from a natural spring in the back garden and living off eggs laid by their chickens. Of course, for hundreds, possibly thousands, of others the story has not yet ended. Twitter and Facebook is still full of people looking for loved ones and desperate for any kind of news. Just search for “terremoto” or “ayudachile” on Twitter.

Here are the online tools I used to track down news about my family. The honest truth is that although Google was my first port of call (as i’m sure it was for many), it was far from being  useful.

Fact checking and “expert” insight

• Standard news sites such as the BBC and CNN were the starting point to establish the facts as far as possible. I did some due diligence by taking a look at source sites too like the British Geological Survey and the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre. I kept coming back to these big news sites because I knew that they were verifying everything before they published it. As I started “tuning in” to the chaotic conversations on Twitter it was obvious that some people were filling the information vacuum with suposition and rumour. I used these two big news sites as a fact checker. (Interesting aside: I was really surprised that I found CNN’s coverage much better informed and more dynamic than the BBC’s.)

Personal networks and beyond

• Facebook was the obvious social network to use to contact family. As you’ll probably be aware, it’s the biggest social network on the planet - +400 million members - and many of our family have accounts there. Meanwhile I updated my own status asking for news on both Twitter and Facebook. On Twitter people immediately began to re-tweet. On Facebook people started to “Like” my status. (I had an email from a friend pointing out that he felt odd about “liking” this but that it was a way of passing the message on to the wider Facebook network.) It was exactly what I wanted to happen. Ultimately it was these messages and this personal network that yielded results - on Sunday afternoon I spotted a response on a cousin of a cousin’s wall from a family member who had been out of town in the north of Chile. She’d managed to get a single mobile call through to the family in the south who had confirmed that they were all safe and more or less well.

• I used Twitter to try to pick up any information about the local situation. Twitter’s live search function made it easy to start listening in and joining the conversation about just what was going on. I refined my research from “Chile” (people were tweeting in their thousands on the topic and it was impossible to keep up) to “Chiguayante” - the name of the small town just outside Concepcion where they all lived.

• This was how I found a whole new network: people in Chile and from the four corners of the earth desperately tweeting and re-tweeting messages asking for news about the situation in that town. We began to talk to each other and to share any information that came our way. This was how I found some of the most useful sources of information and kept those who were manning the phone and the email up to date on developments.

Aggregation, curation, and old fashioned broadcast

• TerremotoChile.com - this site appeared within 3 hours of the quake and began aggregating news stories, pictures, video clips, information from Twitter and Facebook, official announcements and further sources of information. By downloading a plug-in for Firefox I was able to view the page in translation. This continues to be the single most informative site about the fine detail of what it was like to live through the earthquake, in my opinion. I have nothing but respect for Francisco and Evelyn - the two people who set the site up and continue to update it.
• Chile Person Finder - Google’s most helpful contribution to my search - the database they put together to help people list missing persons and then gather information in a central, searchable database. It is a fantastic idea. And it’s probably only Google who have enough authority to host the definitive missing persons database. So respect to Google for that. But ultimately, it was us who registered our family on there, and us who updated it once we’d got news that they were safe. So it didn’t help me directly.
• @AyudaChile - this Twitter account for re-tweeting requests for information about lost family members was live in around 5 hours after the earthquake. Whoever set it up - respect to them. There are now 12,000+ followers. Sadly there are still hundreds of requests for information being every hour.
• TV de Chile livestream on Ustream - this channel had BBC News 24 style reportage from Santiago. All of the footage that the BBC broadcast in the 48hours following the quake came from this source.
• Radio Agricultura - streaming local radio station that was still broadcasting throughout the quake and in the aftermath.

Other social networks - beyond Facebook and Twitter

• Flickr - was a great way of finding direct visual confirmation of what was happening in Concepcion. The first pictures from Chiguayante didn’t appear for a few days, but while telephone communication is out, seeing pictures of familiar streets looking more or less ok is a great comfort.
• YouTube - the video clips of the actual earthquake are harrowing and horrifying to say the least. But clips from the aftermath do reassure that even after 2 minutes of violent shaking, many buildings were still standing pretty much intact.

IMAGES:

Camera image via CC Licence from Flickr user Tom

Charging mobiles image via CC Licence from Flickr user Rodrigo Linfati

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Chile earthquake: why Google is the last place to go in a crisis

The challenges for brands

1) Social media spaces are not brand-friendly
Travel brands might want to really engage with customers through social media, but by its very nature this stuff is highly personal. A faceless brand justs feel totally out of place here.  People unsurprisingly relate best to [real] people.  What we are seeing is the smarter companies starting to let the real people that work for them  step out from behind their corporate brand-speak. To talk with their own voices. Jetblue in the USA and easyJet in the UK both use Twitter really effectively to help customers in a really personal and helpful manner.

2) Customers want unbiased information
Worse for brands, people want to deal with other people that they feel they can trust. In a direct customer services environment - like the twitter examples above - then contact with a real person who works for the company works well. But how about finding holiday ideas, getting inspiration for trips? Any information that has a brand associated with it will feel like a hardcore sales message. People will smell an ulterior motive. They won’t trust what they read.

3) Brands don’t really know how to be online publishers
Back in the old off-line days, travel companies published customer magazines, produced  brochures, mailed out literature - but all of it by nature was promotional. Often marketers don’t really ‘get’ unbiassed content - they have ‘what’s the sales message’ built into their DNA.  Their job is to sell more product.  Nowadays on the social web - people are looking for unbiassed, credible information to help them decide what to do for their holidays. That’s a completely different environment and a completely different mindset.

An opportunity?

I’m finding the idea of using a credible, experienced travel writer to create content for a brand increasingly appealing - in particular content that sits in a more social environment where people are in the planning phase of booking their holiday. Using an expert travel writer offers several advantages:

1) Credibility
If I’m reading content on a blog hosted by a travel brand about say, great ideas for romantic breaks in Prague I really won’t value recommendations that seem to come directly from the company. It will feel too much like someone is trying to sell me something. If it’s written by an unbiassed travel expert offering ideas and advice - with a profile that I can read and links to other pieces they have written about romantic breaks elsewhere - then the content immediately feels more genuine. By association the company wins as well.

2) Personality
As I said above, people relate to people. I’m much more likely to engage with content (and potentially go on and purchase) if I feel a connection with a real person writing it - someone a bit like me,  someone who understands my needs,  someone whose opinion I feel I can trust.

3) Great ideas
This socially-enabled online publishing world can be bit of a scary space for marketers. For web-journalists who know their stuff (and not all do!) it’s home. A genuinely web-savvy travel writer can work with a marketer to come up with great ideas that will really work for their customers. Great ideas that are developed primarily with a user in mind rather than a sales target. Ideas that will foster engagement and conversation.

Here are a few different examples of this idea in practice:

• VisitFlorida’s use of expert writers with specific interests
• Fiona Hilliard writing the Glove Box blog for Argus Car Hire
• Lara Dunston and Terence Carter, writing the Gran Turismo blog for HomeAway Holiday-Rentals

Some I think work better than others. What do you think?

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This brave new world of travel writing

I created MademoiselleRobot.com in November 2007 as a personal endeavour. Having worked as a journalist/editor for many years before relocating from Paris to London, I needed an outlet for my writing, and what started off as a hobby has since become my job.

I currently get an average of 150,000 page views a month and in the past two years have been both a witness and a protagonist in the rise of online fashion.

Why should brands reach out to bloggers?

The rise of online fashion means that bloggers are now firmly on people’s radars. User recommendations and reviews are the flavour of the moment. Bloggers can be seen as ’super reviewers’ - they are everyday people talking to an engaged audience.

Blog readers are more likely to go and buy something they have seen on their favourite blog than in a magazine for example. Very often, people will buy something online straight away after seeing it on a blog, because bloggers are trusted by their readers most of the time.

If brands want to boost their online sales, I believe the best way of doing so is through an efficient blogger outreach campaign.

Bloggers vs. Journalists

A blogger is by definition anyone online with an opinion and a journalist is someone who has received formal training in order to either formulate an opinion or deliver information.

There are different types of bloggers, and this is the main point agencies and brands have yet to understand. It is primordial to differentiate professional bloggers - who influence other bloggers and benefit from a large following - from ‘leisure bloggers’ - who influence a small to medium community.

What it comes down to is that bloggers and journalists should be treated in the same basic way: with simplicity and respect. A lot of the time, elaborate marketing ploys don’t get the attention of influential bloggers as they just don’t have time to ‘play’, much like journalists.

However, in some instances, bloggers shouldn’t have the same access as journalists. I think Tavi is very talented and has a unique take on fashion, but I don’t think bloggers should be covering Haute Couture shows. This is something for the traditional fashion press. Really this has nothing to do with Tavi.

The importance of an editorial line

Especially post-‘Tavi-Gate’, bloggers have to make sure they keep their integrity and make sure they don’t fall prey to similar PR strategies.

I can’t stress enough how important it is for bloggers to be aware that they can be used by brands. They absolutely must have a strict editorial line and ethics.

The editorial line I set myself on MademoiselleRobot.com is very simple: if I like a product and would happily go and buy it myself, I will write about it. If I think it is not quite right, I will politely decline.

How to reach out to bloggers

Partnerships seem to be one of the ways brands have found to reach bloggers. Personally, I disapprove of such practice as the basis of the collaboration is very one-sided: the blogger receives products to review every so often and in exchange places the company logo permanently on their blog.

To me, a badge on a blog = display advertising, which comes with a price tag. Also, reviewing products = giving coverage to the company. What’s in it for the blogger? Clothes? Not every blogger wants to work for freebies, and would prefer to get paid.

The correct way to approach bloggers is very simple: read their blog, email them with targeted products, meet them, take time to explain what your brand does, if necessary loan or gift a product to be shown on the blog. Simple and efficient, non?

A few blogger outreach tips for brands

• Don’t judge the quality of a blog by the access the blogger appears to have. Since brands don’t yet know who to reach out to, a lot of blogs of varying quality have access to the same events and information.

• Read blogs and subscribe to a handful of them via RSS. Get someone on your team to spend an hour every morning reading through them. That should be enough for you to assess who to get in touch with.

• Find the most influential bloggers and reach out to them, then wait for the ripple effect. Make the bloggers you reach out to feel special, not one of many.

• Stop thinking that all bloggers are friends. Most of us don’t even know each other.

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How brands should work with fashion bloggers

It  excellently explains the way that social media and new technologies are radically changing the media landscape, along with the impact this is having upon consumer behaviour.

Not much more to be said, the video speaks for itself. 4:45 of visually beautiful stats. Enjoy!

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Did You Know 4.0

Last Friday I presented at the NMAlive event* on Online Engagement Demysitified event, running with the hopeful title “How Engagement Measurement Will Change the World” (see slides above).

As ever, it was a good opportunity to revisit the theme of engagement measurement and think about how we talk about it at iCrossing.

We’ve effectively spent the last four years looking at how you quantify and understand the concept of engagement. It’s only with evidence and actionable analysis that the idea of connected brands, organisations in touch and in dialogue with with their customers and stakeholders online becomes real.

Evaluating engagement has become increasing sophisticated. Right now the social media analysts in the UK are re-mixing the whole idea of search and social media data as a research discipline in incredibly exciting ways for clients as diverse as banks and soft drinks brands. Our work in this area has been profiled in two Forrester case studies on our projects for Channel 4 and Toyota.

The technology has moved at an incredible rate too. We started with social network analysis visualisation and a lot of manual work on collating data. Over time the expertise of out technical department, performance insight experts and insights from our journalist team have all been fed into new approaches to using our own tools and those of technology platforms like Brandwatch and Buzzmetrics. We remain open-minded as the the best technology and metrics mix for any particular campaign or brand.

What has remained a constant though for the past two years or so, is the basic framework that we use when developing an evaluation, iCrossing’s Framework for Measuring Evaluation (see diagram).

Three things we have learned about evaluating engagement are:

1. It can drive creative: Good evaluation of engagement delivers data and insight that constitute “live research”, which in turn - with the right processes and platforms in places - allows “live creative”, creative played out in an agile way, responding to how content is being received and re-used. It was this realisation that allowed an insight from web analytics to inspire the hyper-miling creative in the Toyota iQ campaign which was the outstanding success in that project.
2. User-centred perspective is key: Measurement mentality is shaped still by the channel media world we come from. The emphasis is too often on simply the brand’s and its marketing messages’ “impact” or “penetration” of target consumers. Colleagues from iCrossing’s user experience team have ensured that user behaviours and how they change during engagement have remained our focus in developing measurement approaches for engagement. This has also meant that we have been able to step out of the sales-funnel model of measuring (which ends with a sale) and create a model in which a purchase is an elevated but not always the ultimate form of engagement.
3. Stories+numbers: “Stories and numbers” have become a mantra for us over the past couple of years. It helps us to remember that both are equally important to meaningful measurement. Numbers without stories don’t travel far in organisations, don’t affect change, inspire action, without stories that make the meaning easy for people to grasp and communicate to others.

This last point gives us the justification for the title. As Alan Moore put it, “social data is the black gold of the 21st century” and it is engagement evaluation where we are closest to unlocking the value of this data to organisations. The insights and data (stories and numbers) that are being created need to travel further in organisations than the marketing and PR functions. They are so valuable that they create the business case for wiring organisations differently, having the connections between “departments” like PR and customer care stronger, the lines between “divisions” blurred and eroded.

Being able to understand and act on engagement data will change how brands - and more broadly all organisations - function.

* If you’re not familiar NMAlive’s a particularly useful format for speakers and delegates alike. Here’s what I like about it:

• Concise and well -priced: The events are on a Friday for the morning only - it’s easy to justify a morning out of the office.
• Short-lead time: Events tend to be organised about six weeks out, which means the topic is fresh - in this instance related to big brands using Cost Per Engagement (CPE) as a means of setting payment for publishers.
• Mix of people: It seemed all parts of the media/marketing complex were represented well: clients, agencies, media owners and obeservers. It makes for interesting, direct discussion (as does the size - about 100 people max).

It’s a winning formula I’d hope to see emulated by other publishers / event-organisers.

Post from: Connect

How engagement measurement will change the world

Like most people, I’ve spent the last week watching the depth of the devastation caused by the earthquake in Haiti reveal itself with an increasing sense of horror and disbelief. And probably like most people, I’ve donated as much as I could afford to the relief effort via the Disasters and Emergency Committee (DEC) website, because, as one colleague put it: “There’s pretty much nothing else that I can practically do to help the people of Haiti.”

The story that has been playing out on our TV screens and newspapers is truly shocking, and there seems to be a battle going on over which story the media wants to tell. What’s going to sell more papers or get more views or viewers? The story of “hope” (the one word headline on the Sun’s front page on Monday) - that people are still being pulled out of the rubble alive nearly a week on from the earthquake? Or the story of “human evil” - that “thugs” (as the Metro’s front page so eloquently described the Haitian earthquake survivors) are “looting, shooting and lynching” (the Telegraph) as a response to humanitarian efforts to provide them with food and water. (The fact that we’ve all donated £25million so far tends to suggest the Sun got it right again!)

Of course, the need of the media to create simplified, exaggerated, panic-driven narratives in order to grab attention from their competitors is nothing new. But as my sister (who works in the digital communications team at the Department for International Development  - DfID) explained to me as she worked a Sunday shift whilst visiting me this weekend - the way that the media tells these kinds of story has had a direct impact on the amount of money raised by DEC in the past.

I was fascinated, then, to see that her emergency shift supporting the DfID press office with their communications relating to relief efforts in Haiti wasn’t so she could help with press enquiries. Rather she was working to publish updates on DfID’s own website, and pictures and relief plan details directly to social media places such as Flickr and Twitter and on their blog pages. I watched her upload this Creative Commons map (which she sourced from Wikimedia) showing the exact location of the Leogain to Flickr, a region of Haiti that no one had yet managed to get to, and where DfID co-ordinated rescue teams were planning to travel to next. In a situation like this, providing pictures, updates and information directly to people like you and me - rather than relying on the press to tell the story - means that we are able to make up our own minds whether we think that this is a cause that’s worth our money without the filter of headlines, editors and ad sales targets.

Personally, I find this a very easy decision to make! But for those who might be worried that their money might somehow end up being “looted” by “thugs”, these images and updates tell a pretty clear story.

I’d really recommend adding DfID and other relief co-ordinating agencies to your social media feeds and streams if you are interested in getting a clearer understanding of what is happening in Haiti. With news breaking today that a second earthquake  measuring 6.1 shook the island this morning, the success of social media to help raise awareness about the need for donations could make a big difference to Haitian survivors.

IMAGE CREDIT: Michael Haig / Department for International Development via Creative Commons licence

HEADER IMAGE CREDIT: The U.S. Army

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When ROI is truly a matter of life and death

So, in the Spotify spirit of enabling both good and evil to flourish, we offer you, without prejudice, the iCrossing UK Christmas Playlist - a collaborative effort of festive proportions.

It features some of the loveliest Christmas (and Christmassy) music ever made, including several tunes I first came across on this gem of a compilation from 2000, Jeepster/XFM’s It’s a cool cool Christmas. These include Low’s ‘Just Like Christmas’, Eels’ ‘Everything’s Gonna Be Cool This Christmas’ and El Vez’s ‘Feliz Navidad’ - classics one and all.

There are leftfield corkers (gawd bless you Flaming Lips), perfect wintry pop songs (El Perro del Mar), some frequent fliers (Sufjan Stevens, Vince Guaraldi Trio, Soulsavers), folky tearjerkers (Handsome Family) and a smattering of smooth crooning classics, whose glories refuse to fade despite limitless exposure.

It also includes some tracks that ought, in my opinion, never to be played, anywhere. I initially took out the Paul McCartney track thinking that someone had dropped it in there for a joke; but having heard its heart-felt defence by our head of search innovation Addam Hassan it’s back in. I’m sorry.

Such is the closely intertwined beauty and horror of Spotify. But unlike an inextricable taped compilation of ye olden days, this one’s ready for swift reinterpretation. So, please: stick it on, pluck the bounteous wheat for your own Christmas playlist, and let us know what treasures we’ve missed.

Merry Christmas!

There are also a few tracks that Spotify could not muster which would otherwise have been in there. King among them, Half Man Half Biscuit’s ‘It’s cliched to be cynical at Christmas’ (but at least you can go to YouTube for that, thanks Ben).

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Merry Spotify Christmas from iCrossing

I was struck this week by a sad example of this in an unexpected format when I happened to find the Borders Insider blog on The Bookseller website. This is an unofficial, anonymous blog written by a member of staff about what is happening inside the shops now that they’ve gone into liquidation. At first glance, you might think that the post entitled “Running on empty” is a very good example of why so many organisations are scared stiff of the idea of letting their people connect directly with the world via a corporate blog.  At first sight this might not be the best advert for corporate blogging - for starters it’s hosted by another site altogether, and the quotes like the one below are a PR’s nightmare aren’t they?

“We are running on empty, all we do is tidy. Everyday we feel less and less like booksellers and more and more like caretakers. The massive jolt that is administration, which was at first in a strange way energising, feels more and more like a dead weight. There’s only so many times you can explain the gift card redemption rule to angry people, without it getting extremely wearying.”

And yet, if you read a bit further, and then go on to read the comments below this post, what you’re left with is a very strong impression of the knowledge and passion of the Borders’ staff. And the very strong connection they had with their loyal customers.

“Please remember the peope who are treating you so poorly are not your customers. We are still here, devastated by what has happened, and what is happening, but you will see less of us now and more of the bargain hunters only dimly aware that this was once a book shop. My famiy and I have been going to Borders nearly every week since it opened. My wife and I found and decided on our childrens names, planned our wedding and rewarded our children at Borders. The failures have not been yours. If you were to think from scratch of how to compete with Supermarkets and the internet, you would come up with Borders. All the events, especially for children, and your enthusiasm contributed to an overall positive experience with books. You are not booksellers but ambassadors for literature. There are a lot of children who will never forget you and will benefit from your efforts.”

And this isn’t just limited to the store that this commentator frequented. I went into the Brighton branch of Borders this morning and was able to witness for myself the dedicated team of staff there still helping their customers find what they want amongst the jumble sale piles of books. That’s the kind of genuine customer advocacy that no PR stunt or press release can fake. And that’s why, I would argue, if you think your organisation has a special kind of chemistry with its customers and stakeholders, and a unique kind of engagement amongst its employees, a corporate blog is an excellent way of sharing it with the world.

IMAGE by Flickr user markhillary published under CC licence

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The sad story of the Borders “corporate blog”

Social search results are just another area of Google’s real estate to aim to be visible in for brands in addition to the standard results.

Google have already mentioned the social sites and resources they will use to identify who is within users social circle, so these exact places are where brands need to be. These include:

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Gmail Contacts
• Linkedin
• YouTube
• Flickr
• Google Reader
• FriendFeed
• MySpace

Being present in these online social arenas is not purely enough, but brands also need to be active here, using them as an everyday platform to promote their products and sharing their knowledge and expertise in their specialised areas.

Brands now need to have a voice and engage in social media to steal more Google real estate from beneath the feet of their competitors.

How will brands do this?

• Sign up to the social media accounts above
• Be active within these accounts
• Produce useful and interesting information
• Share information, knowledge as well as promoting products
• Aim to achieve as many contacts, friends and followers as possible through the various search spaces
• Invest in the brand voice
• Buy your own short URL

The type of content brands push through these social spaces should be tailored to attract as many contacts as possible, through being useful and interesting. With the highest number of contacts achieved as possible ensures a wider spread of visibility across more peoples SERPs.

Currently an opt in experiment, brands need to prepare for when this becomes mainstream and they are there ready to reap the benefits of their preparation as early on as possible.

It takes a big budget to participate and to be actively creating interesting & useful information and distributing according to a social media strategy, but with Google’s emphasis with ‘real time’ based results, it suggest that it will be more and more important to do so. Not only with twitter search results being included in the SERPs, but Google continues to prepare its rich application framework having a dramatic impact on real-time delivery, and potentially on the results page itself. Features such as the ’sort by date’ on Google blogs and ‘past 24 hours’, ‘past hour’ sorting as an option on the usual SERPs highlights the ever increasing importance and movement in the direction of having a continual voice to be published, increasing the chance to be found.

So my final take away is, social search needs to be invested in, a brand must have a regular voice published across a variety of social spaces, in order to succeed in future search strategies. Search & social are going to continue to become one and it is becoming ever more impossible to avoid engagement if you want a successful ecommerce strategy.

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Position a Brand to claim their Social Search Real Estate

2009’s been a bad year for it – first there was Spotify, which instantly transformed my music listening and sharing habits. Then there was Twitter, which woke up after a year snoozing and ate my blog.

And now my world’s been realigned again: this time by Posterous.

I was alerted to it by Antony’s recent presentation, which gave it a special mention among things to watch out for in 2010. Since then I’ve gone slightly nuts for it.

Pre-Posterous printing press, 1930, from Seattle Municipal Archive

Others have done the hard work of describing what Posterous does: in short, it’s a tool that makes it absurdly easy to publish text/audio/images/video and push it to wherever else you’d like it go.

Apathy + telepathy

At its simplest and most powerful, it allows you to post almost anything via email – simply attach the document, jpeg or MP3 to your email – or just include a URL for it - and send to post@posterous.com. The subject field dictates the post title.

Send a bunch of photos (or links to photos) and it arranges them into a tidy gallery without being asked. If you’ve hooked up your Posterous account to Flickr, attached files will automatically be uploaded to your photostream as well. If you have another ‘proper’ blog you can you autopost to that too.

It also syncs with Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and most other things, with the capability of posting to one, several or all of them.

And – I haven’t yet tried this myself – but publish an audio file and it will turn it into a podcast, to which anyone can subscribe via iTunes.

You don’t even have to sign up for an account. Just send an email to post@posterous.com and you have your first blog post online. Short of telepathy, I can’t imagine a more user-friendly process.

Way of the web

The instant attraction of Posterous is symptomatic of a problem I’m usually reluctant to acknowledge.

I can bore for Britain about how revelatory, how revolutionary the internet is. But in the midst of my enthusiasms, I’m prone to gloss over the rubbish stuff – the information overload; the daily task of resetting some or other password; the ease with which you can be busy doing nothing.

The simplicity of Posterous reaffirms the inspiring possibilities, while dispensing with much of the tedious admin. Because on the one hand, it’s further reason to believe that super-easy, non-techie publication will draw the web into even more lives and areas of life - making it possible to find, connect, arrange and improve more of the stuff of life itself.

And on the other, it looks like a significant step towards a faff-free online future.

Header image credit: Flickr user Katie@!

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Posterous and the faff-free future