When App.net was first taking off, many microbloggers struggled with how to decide where to post their short-form writing. Should they post some topics to Twitter and others to App.net? Should they cross-post everything to both services? At the time, there was an informal consensus that cross-posting was a cheat. It couldn’t take advantage of each platform’s strengths, and followers might often see the same post twice.
I now believe that cross-posting is a good thing. Photos, as one example, are frequently cross-posted to both Instagram and Facebook. Tweets can be sent to Twitter as well as our own blogs. Many apps like Instagram or Foursquare support and even encourage cross-posting. It’s good for developers because it helps spread knowledge of the publishing app, and it’s good for writers because it means there are multiple copies of our content.
It’s no secret that I’m building a microblog aggregation and publishing service. The goal is for us to get back to our roots with blogging — to write on our own web sites first, not as an afterthought to Twitter. Cross-posting is an important bootstrap for that.
If you don’t have a blog, start one today. It takes minutes to set up, and hardly any more time to wire up automatic tweeting via IFTTT from your RSS feed. Start with cross-posting and see if something interesting evolves from there.
