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Posterous - Beacon of Data Portability

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Re: Posterous - Beacon of Data Portability

#21

Post by mortenjorck »

bosch wrote: post #10

If Posterous wants to be a STAND UP company, they'll post information and a tool(not just XML or API) on how to migrate away FROM Posterous. Then they can go and write importers for other sites. I'm sick of all these companies talking shit but not being able to back it up when they say they're looking out for the user!

Whoa, let's calm down and think rationally here.

Is it really a web app company's responsibility to actually write importers for competitors? It's certainly a responsible practice to document the API well, but you're basically asking for your landlord to pay for your moving van when you move out.

Re: Posterous - Beacon of Data Portability

#22

Post by techtruth »

techtruth wrote: post #12
bosch wrote: post #10

If Posterous wants to be a STAND UP company, they'll post information and a tool(not just XML or API) on how to migrate away FROM Posterous. Then they can go and write importers for other sites. I'm sick of all these companies talking shit but not being able to back it up when they say they're looking out for the user!

well said

Convinced. Thanks for clarifying your side of story. Characterizing other platforms as dead kind of tickled me. sorry.

Re: Posterous - Beacon of Data Portability

#23

Post by irahul »

techtruth wrote: post #8
lyime wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can easily get all the data from XML feeds. Or you can use their API to get all the data out through XML or JSON. Both are standard formats. I am pretty sure no one offers a export my data function. Not even Tumblr.

I dont know about Tumblr. but wordpress & livejournal supports metaweblog i think. may be tumblr should support it as well.

Posterous supports XML/JSON but that's not good enough for you since they don't support metaweblog. While we are at it, I would want Posterous to support .txt, .ini, .html, NewsML and any other plethora of the formats that exists.

Your argument is flawed and you are changing your base premise when called out.

Re: Posterous - Beacon of Data Portability

#24

Post by irahul »

techtruth wrote: post #22
techtruth wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

well said

Convinced. Thanks for clarifying your side of story. Characterizing other platforms as dead kind of tickled me. sorry.

Freedom of speech allows them to do so. It's up to the users to decide if there is any merits in their claim.

If you were defending tumblr or trying to make posterous look bad, I don't think you did any good here.

Re: Posterous - Beacon of Data Portability

#25

Post by steveklabnik »

jackowayed wrote: post #20
steveklabnik wrote: post #5

I was actually considering making such a tool, because I'm pretty sure that I'm moving away from Posterous in the near future. I'm sure if I do, I'll put it up on GitHub. The biggest concern I have is not only getting the content of posts, but being able to make a .htaccess with redirects so that I don't lose my google juice.

Just wondering, why are you leaving Posterous, and to what do you want to switch?

Overall, I like Posterous. It's easy to post stuff, most of the default skins look nice...

But at the same time, I'm a programmer. I love to tinker. I'd much rather have something that runs on my own server, and lets me do whatever. There's a few widgets and things I'd like to add, or at least experiment with. I can't do that with Posterous.

Additionally, the whole affiliate link thing left a bad taste in my mouth. If I already hadn't been considering switching, it probably wouldn't have been enough, but it moved my thinking from "maybe I'll switch someday" to "I'm going to switch someday."

One of the reasons I haven't switched yet is that I don't feel there's a clear winner in the blogging space. I like Tumblr's look and feel, but that doesn't solve my portability or customizability concerns. I'm trying to fight the urge to start typing 'rails g post title:string body:text' because I really don't have the time to do all of that... I've been thinking about trying Wordpress 3, but with it's security history, I'm a little shaky. I used to use Jekyll, and enjoyed it, so that might also be where I go.

Re: Posterous - Beacon of Data Portability

#26

Post by bosch »

mortenjorck wrote: post #21
bosch wrote: post #10

If Posterous wants to be a STAND UP company, they'll post information and a tool(not just XML or API) on how to migrate away FROM Posterous. Then they can go and write importers for other sites. I'm sick of all these companies talking shit but not being able to back it up when they say they're looking out for the user!

Whoa, let's calm down and think rationally here. Is it really a web app company's responsibility to actually write importers for competitors? It's certainly a responsible practice to document the API well, but you're basically asking for your landlord to pay for your moving van when you move out.

Well if they're truly going to back data portability then writing data importers for competitors would not only be true to the ideal, it would be a ballsy move!

Re: Posterous - Beacon of Data Portability

#27

Post by bosch »

a4agarwal wrote: post #18
bosch wrote: post #10

If Posterous wants to be a STAND UP company, they'll post information and a tool(not just XML or API) on how to migrate away FROM Posterous. Then they can go and write importers for other sites. I'm sick of all these companies talking shit but not being able to back it up when they say they're looking out for the user!

Ok here you go: http://en.blog.wordpress.com/2010/02/09/posterous-importer/ There's information and a direct link to a plugin that lets you export your site out of Posterous to Wordpress. We think we're a better service than they are, but we aren't afraid of data portability. Users can switch as much as they want and choose the best service

Why don't you mention this in any of your announcements? It'd be worth mentioning to people that not only can you import their information from X service, but if they try it and don't like it you can upload any changes to their old service? That would reduce potential customers fears of data lock-in and give them another reason to try Posterous?

Re: Posterous - Beacon of Data Portability

#29

Post by frognibble »

roboneal wrote: post #13

Calling this "hypocrisy" is way overblown. When they block and threaten legal action against a company for writing a custom "importer" to pull content from Posterous - then you have hypocrisy.

For those tuning in recently, the original title of this post was "Posterous Hypocrisy".

Re: Posterous - Beacon of Data Portability

#30

Post by [deleted] »

techtruth wrote: post #14
radicaldreamer wrote: post #11

For the record: Posterous API allows 100% access to your data on Posterous. Users own their content and are free to move. -Sachin Agarwal ( http://bit.ly/9MYzfP ) What hypocrisy?

Can normal users know how to use this API? Why don't you give a button which says export my posts to a text file or something else.

[deleted]
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