Posterous - a Google Reader social replacement?

It's tough to replace Google Reader Social (damn you Google). I've been generating tweets from Google Reader, but the workflow is awkward on the native web app. Tweeting from the feedstream is a bit better with Reeder.app, but still not good enough. In any case, Twitter isn't what I want...

Gordon's Tech: After the fall of Google Reader: Posterous, Tumblr and Zootool with Twitter on the side

I'm looking for ...

1. Bookmarklet that generates posts with title, url, excerpt and annotation.
2. Must have an RSS feed.
3. Must have a business model that involves me paying for services received.
4. Either I have control over the data store or there's a way to create a read-only repository I can keep.
5. Reeder.app support, so I can use Reeder.app for IOS and Reeder.app for Mac, avoid Google's miserable UI, and prepare for migration to another OPML store.
6. Twitter integration so it tweets shares for those who are good with Twitter's limitations.

There are GR.oldstyle replacements under development, but for now most of us are looking at Tumblr and Posterous as microblogging solutions. For unclear reasons I've been experimenting first with Posterous.

Posterous does pretty well against my list...

1. Big time bookmarklet with title, url, excerpt and annotation.
2. RSS feeds, though these are being minimized in favor of (yes, you guessed) proprietary and closed pub/sub (like G+).
3. Business model that .... ummm .... ok, so they don't have a way to make money ....
4. Each Posterous post can generate a secondary post to my Dreamhost Wordpress blog.
5. No built in Reader.app support, but good support for processing emailed content. Google Reader will 'send to' Posterous but I don't like how it works.
6. Tweets on post.

In addition Posterous will import from Blogger and Wordpress but not, alas, from an RSS feed (or I'd pull in my Google Reader Shares).

Documentation is a bit hard to find, in fact, once you sign in to Posterous it's pretty much hidden. The Posterous 'faq' is a good start, but eventually I blundered my way to Posterous Help. It includes ...

• A list of autopost (secondary post) sites: WordPress (XML-RPC only), Facebook, Twitter, Google Buzz (!), Blogger, Tumblr (!), Drupal, Delicious - but not, of course, G+. A single Posterous post can produce many secondary posts. I believe the bookmarklet allows us to select a subset at time of posting.
• Posterous is integrated with several Twitter clients, so can comment on Twitter.
• Integrate with custom domain (so micro.kateva.org for example)
• Adding a G+ button (this is an ugly hack, a G+ API would make this feasible)

Overall, it's promising.

Except ....

Except for my #3 item. They're "free". I don't like "free". Autopost alleviates some of the risk, but free is bad. It's not good that just two months ago they went from a focus on microblogging to trying to imitate G+.

See also:

• Why Tumblr is kicking Posterous’s ass « PEG on Tech (1/10): To me this makes Posterous more appealing.
• HOW TO: Get the Most Out of Posterous (9/2009)
• Posterous Swaps Blog Platform for Social Network 9/11): Turns out a month ago they tried to relaunch as a G+ like service. Kind of ominous.

Update 11/9/2011: Thinking this over more. I see from comments on the Mashable 9/11 article that Posterous dropped tagging from posts. That's a real change in direction for a microblogging solution. I'm getting the sinking feeling that I would have loved Posterous in early 2010, but now their future is bleak. I'm not looking for a revenue-free small world version of G+. I'll review Tumblr next.

Update 11/24/2011: I searched. And searched. And I can't find any way to delete a Posterous Space. I do see how to delete accounts, but not Spaces. If there really is no way to delete a Space, short of deleting an Account, then Posterous is a crazy-most-avoid kind of place.