Posterous ( >http://posterous.com ) was started in July 28, 2008 by Sachin Agarwal (30) and Garry Tan (29) with the intention of making blogging as simple as emailing. It was meant for close friends.
Backed by Y Combinator, the prestigious incubator, Posterous has already raised more than $5 million. Preposterous? “No! Simply Posterous,” laugh its creators.
The San Francisco-based start-up created this technology that lets users post photos and updates; create a website to share any amount of media with friends, and family with the ease of sending an email. The main idea is simplicity.
Users don't even have to create an account with Posterous. Anyone wishing to post can send an email to >post@posterous.com . A site is then created and a link is sent back via email so that users can review the posting.
“Garry and I were in the same fraternity at Stanford. I remember we wrote a bunch of Perl scripts to put our digital photos online. Sharing online never was as simple or powerful as we wanted it to be. Ten years later, we left our jobs to start Posterous,” says Sachin, co-founder and CEO.
More than just blogging
While Posterous can help with blogs, private and professional, it is more than just a web-publishing medium. “First generation blogging tools weren't good for sharing rich media such as images and video. They also didn't support mobile devices like the iPhone,” says Sachin. “We wanted a better way to post matter online, and email was the simplest universal way to do it. Email is used by millions of people every day, handles rich media perfectly, and it's mobile.”
File and format
It accepts any kind of file sent and converts it to a web-friendly format, besides resizing photos and embedding mp3 files. Security is a high priority; any suspicious email is always checked for authenticity.
“There are no limits to what Posterous can do,” chime its owners, “especially with the launch of the Desktop TwitPic Downloader (September 2010).” It is designed to help users “regain control” of their photos. This device, once downloaded and installed, helps to download photos from TwitPic to be archived in hard drives for reposting on Posterous blogs.
Like any other start-up, the going wasn't always easy for Posterous. “We listened to our users, responded to all help emails personally, and monitored Twitter. That's how we figured out what people liked and didn't like in Posterous, and what we needed to work on next,” explains Sachin.
