I laughed at Posterous, but they proved me wrong(blog.dustincurtis.com)
blog.dustincurtis.com
I laughed at Posterous, but they proved me wrong
http://blog.dustincurtis.com/i-dont-laugh-at-startup-ideas-anymore
78 comments
You must be very different than I am. I used to have Wordpress hosted blog which I would not update as much as I would like to. Reason? Whenever I was in the Wordpress 'New Post' window, I would worry about post formatting, title of the post, my potential readers etc. than about writing what's in my head at the moment.
With Posterous, if there is any idea/thought in my head, I simply write down an email and send it to [email protected]. If I have images to post, instead of uploading them one by one, I simply forward them to Posterous and hey, I get a nice image gallery on my blog. Even better, with Posterous' iPhone app, I could send any interesting picture straight from my camera to my blog. What I realized that I had created lot of artificial barrier to updating my blog and Posterous took it all away. I use Posterous exclusively through email (unless I need to delete/fix post) and I think it rocks!
With Posterous, if there is any idea/thought in my head, I simply write down an email and send it to [email protected]. If I have images to post, instead of uploading them one by one, I simply forward them to Posterous and hey, I get a nice image gallery on my blog. Even better, with Posterous' iPhone app, I could send any interesting picture straight from my camera to my blog. What I realized that I had created lot of artificial barrier to updating my blog and Posterous took it all away. I use Posterous exclusively through email (unless I need to delete/fix post) and I think it rocks!
Depends on what you're writing about. For a while, I never used the email posts, because it wasn't adequate to handle my code blogging. That's changed since Chris implemented markdown.
If you just write text and post pictures, email is great.
If you just write text and post pictures, email is great.
One of the strengths of Posterous is that it offers a good solution to both approaches. If you like the ease-of-publishing via email, it can do it. Web? Got that too. How about via an iPhone or Android? Check.
In Clayton Christensen's book The Innovator's Dilemma, he discusses two types of disruptive innovations:
1) Low-end disruptions
These serve less demanding customers with low-priced, relatively straightforward offerings using low-cost business models. Look for markets with over-served customers and offer a simpler product or service.
2) New-market disruptions
These serve new customers by making it easier for them to do something that previously required being or hiring specialists. Look for unfulfilled needs and create new products or services for them.
Posterous is a great example of a low-end disruption. They're offering a product so damn simple that few realized it would have such an impact (like Dustin Curtis). And now they've got features that early adopters and perhaps some early majority want as well (the rich-text editor). Pretty shrewd of them.
In Clayton Christensen's book The Innovator's Dilemma, he discusses two types of disruptive innovations:
1) Low-end disruptions
These serve less demanding customers with low-priced, relatively straightforward offerings using low-cost business models. Look for markets with over-served customers and offer a simpler product or service.
2) New-market disruptions
These serve new customers by making it easier for them to do something that previously required being or hiring specialists. Look for unfulfilled needs and create new products or services for them.
Posterous is a great example of a low-end disruption. They're offering a product so damn simple that few realized it would have such an impact (like Dustin Curtis). And now they've got features that early adopters and perhaps some early majority want as well (the rich-text editor). Pretty shrewd of them.
>if there is any idea/thought in my head, I simply write down an
Sounds more like twitter/facebook updates. Believe there is a higher quality bar for blog posts.
> I would worry about post formatting, title of the post, my potential readers etc.
That's what I do and more (multiple drafts) when writing most blog posts. I expect bloggers I read regularly to at least attempt the same.
Sounds more like twitter/facebook updates. Believe there is a higher quality bar for blog posts.
> I would worry about post formatting, title of the post, my potential readers etc.
That's what I do and more (multiple drafts) when writing most blog posts. I expect bloggers I read regularly to at least attempt the same.
You can post to WP via email.
I used posterous to keep my family and friends updated when I was on a backpacking trip recently. The e-mail posting feature was indispensable given the sporadic WiFi I had, since my Gmail app would cache the emails until it could send it. Anecdotal I know, but I'm sure I'm not the only one.
I do all my postings on Posterous by email, as do the rest of my team. Email posting is the main reason we switched our company blog to Posterous, actually.
If I'm away from my computer, I use email, but if I'm at the computer, I always post from the admin interface.
Honestly, I think this is more of an indictment of the current state of desktop email than anything wrong with Posterous.
Honestly, I think this is more of an indictment of the current state of desktop email than anything wrong with Posterous.
Since we're sharing ... I recently setup a personal Posterous blog so I could photo blog my eating habits using my ancient WinMo phone. I have a WordPress blog which I could have used (WP has post via email built in) but the Posterous system was just so simple I went with it instead.
>> To use Posterous, all you have to do is send one email. You don’t even need to create an account; just email [email protected] and they link it to your email address automatically. Because you’re the only person with access to your email, you don’t even need a password on Posterous.
I don't know anything about their blogging service, but as far as registering for services goes, this idea is gold.
I don't know anything about their blogging service, but as far as registering for services goes, this idea is gold.
What about spoofed emails? Come to think of it, how does posterous handle that? One way would be to mail the user back asking them to reply to confirm and then recording the details of the genuine mail server. Does posterous do that?
On the whole there is a lot to get wrong in this authentication method. I would prefer if this doesn't spread to other web apps.
On the whole there is a lot to get wrong in this authentication method. I would prefer if this doesn't spread to other web apps.
From their faq page:
>> Email can easily be spoofed, but Posterous has come up with some ways to figure out if the email we receive comes from you. If we think it might not be you, we ask you to confirm the email before we post it.
No matter what, you always get an email notification of every post we put online for your blog, with an easy link to remove the post if you didn't do it.
>> Email can easily be spoofed, but Posterous has come up with some ways to figure out if the email we receive comes from you. If we think it might not be you, we ask you to confirm the email before we post it.
No matter what, you always get an email notification of every post we put online for your blog, with an easy link to remove the post if you didn't do it.
http://posterous.com/faq
Addresses some of those issues.
Addresses some of those issues.
I'd be happy to share the usage stats of WP.com's post-by-email feature if Posterous would be willing to do the same.
Hey Matt! Long time!
I'm sure a lot of people would be interested in those numbers. I always assumed a tiny percentage of the WP userbase would employ that particular feature since it's kinda geeky... but definitely would like to know because it does have may implications for other webapp owners.
PS: Congrats on the 3.0 release :) Will be upgrading a couple of sites tomorrow.
I'm sure a lot of people would be interested in those numbers. I always assumed a tiny percentage of the WP userbase would employ that particular feature since it's kinda geeky... but definitely would like to know because it does have may implications for other webapp owners.
PS: Congrats on the 3.0 release :) Will be upgrading a couple of sites tomorrow.
That's why I don't listen to anyone when it comes to assessing the viability of any product. Ask two random people (experts included!) and the odds of you getting diametrically opposite answers are pretty high.
Belief and perseverance is everything.
Belief and perseverance is everything.
I think Posterous mostly succeeded because of its clean design and cool name, not because one can post by email.
Plus YC involvement. Post by email feature was the reason to talk about Posterous though
Which seems like it just gave Posterous publicity.
Trendiness + Reinventing the wheel = Success?
Kind-of like Tumblr too. Every article seemingly focuses around the trendy, hipster founder and not so much on the site.
that's because normal readers care about founder stories, not features.
I'm curious: are you being sarcastic here?
I honestly don't care about the founder stories (good for them, sucks for them, end of story). But the articles do really focus on the founders more than features, and people are known to be silly (hence the never-dying market for tabloids).
I honestly don't care about the founder stories (good for them, sucks for them, end of story). But the articles do really focus on the founders more than features, and people are known to be silly (hence the never-dying market for tabloids).
This was a new feature, a real rework of the blogging platform and not just another blogger or wordpress clone. Innovating on the wheel + Trendiness = Success
From the article, Post-by-email is Posterous' core essence, and the simplicity of that central feature has leaked to all other parts of the service making it an awesome product to use.
The author's argument is that the attitude of "email is the simplest way to post to a blog" is part of why the rest of the design is clean.
The author's argument is that the attitude of "email is the simplest way to post to a blog" is part of why the rest of the design is clean.
Those helped, but no, posting by email was defn a win. You could attach any type of media or put the url of the youtube video in the email, and it'll make it look nice for you. No more embed codes.
Isn't it easy to send an email and put whatever email we want as the sender? I was just wondering, does it means anyone could post on the post of someone else?
Let's find out.
I've just created a posterous account at http://pmn.posterous.com
The email that I've authorized is [email protected]
I've put one post on there, any other posts that appear are not from me.
(I should note, I use Posterous for some personal stuff and love the service. This isn't something I've been terribly concerned about yet.)
I've just created a posterous account at http://pmn.posterous.com
The email that I've authorized is [email protected]
I've put one post on there, any other posts that appear are not from me.
(I should note, I use Posterous for some personal stuff and love the service. This isn't something I've been terribly concerned about yet.)
I just got this email from Posterous:
ATTENTION: We noticed you're sending this from a different
computer or location, so it won't get posted until we're
sure it's you. Please confirm that you sent this.
But what action did they ask you to take to confirm that it is you?
Oh, good question - there is a link in the email to confirm that I want it posted. There is also a dashboard that lets me see all of the attempts and either approve or delete them.
OK. Easy enough: email spoofing + ip spoofing.
My welcome email from July 2008 has a prominent box that says, "Setting a password for your account is easy. It's optional, but here's why you should..."
What did you welcome email say?
What did you welcome email say?
Yep, my welcome email has the same box suggesting I add a password.
I think they're going to end up just as safe as every other blogging service out there.
I think they're going to end up just as safe as every other blogging service out there.
I think they do some checking in the headers. It's not impossible to masquerade as someone.
But how many people want to maliciously post to some random person's Posterous blog? Probably not too many.
But how many people want to maliciously post to some random person's Posterous blog? Probably not too many.
If the system was ever adopted widely (which I presume the founders desire) I would imagine that spoof posting would be a huge problem if someone could pull it off.
I suspect blackhat SEOs would be all over it.
All of the black hats who want to abuse numerous holes in your browser of choice?
They wouldn't necessarily even have to get you to click on a link. There have been numerous attacks against image processing libraries.
They wouldn't necessarily even have to get you to click on a link. There have been numerous attacks against image processing libraries.
Actually, I hadn't read this comment! XD
I don't think blackhats would be all over it, the links are completely invisible to a search engine...
Maybe Smear Campaign artists might take to it. Or spammers...
Maybe Smear Campaign artists might take to it. Or spammers...
I'm not too familiar with Posterous, are all links nofollowed? Can't you post arbitrary HTML to your own blog?
Or people trying to prove a point, check the front page :P
TechCrunch had a contest about this when Posterous launched: http://techcrunch.com/2008/06/28/posterous-beats-tumblr-in-s...
Michael Arrington posted the results here: http://techcrunch.posterous.com/lots-of-fake-post-attempts-o...
Michael Arrington posted the results here: http://techcrunch.posterous.com/lots-of-fake-post-attempts-o...
3 fake posts made it through. I'd consider > 0 a failure. I guess you could use a super secret From email address?
"Apparently
You don’t need a password. Posterous fail."
http://blog.dustincurtis.com/apparently-765
http://blog.dustincurtis.com/apparently-765
For me, the most important point here is about how difficult it is for existing companies to change directions in product vision and yet investors will shy away from innovation based on the flawed "what if <huge company> decides to do this?"
The tech landscape is never fully conquered and all it takes is one inspired, and sometimes obvious, innovation to open the field back up.
The tech landscape is never fully conquered and all it takes is one inspired, and sometimes obvious, innovation to open the field back up.
This is a very good point. One of the most common questions that startups get is "why can't big company Y do X?" and yet time and time again startups succeed in such a space. Of course there are cases where company Y does do X, notably Amazon, Twitter and Facebook. So I think the question or answer needs to reflect the history of the particular companies in question.
And even then. A lot of times Company X does implement Y and it doesn't kill or even slow the startup down. There are probably many reasons behind this. Fundamentally though I think people should just stop asking this question. Or not treat it as such a big deal. Because it's not in the grand scheme of things.
And even then. A lot of times Company X does implement Y and it doesn't kill or even slow the startup down. There are probably many reasons behind this. Fundamentally though I think people should just stop asking this question. Or not treat it as such a big deal. Because it's not in the grand scheme of things.
I think Posterous is winning based on the many factors below; but the one I see most prominently is that a ton of YC startups use them as their company blog.
Posting by email makes complete sense. Think of how many office workers spring upon something they want to post, but opening a webbrowser may be tracked or their boss may see or something.
Though, having it be the driving selling feature... I would have found that quite ridiculous. But, what do I know, I am over 30. My ideas about what the current youth generation want is outdated. I didn't even think like most of them when I was that age.
Though, having it be the driving selling feature... I would have found that quite ridiculous. But, what do I know, I am over 30. My ideas about what the current youth generation want is outdated. I didn't even think like most of them when I was that age.
Posting by email makes complete sense
I honestly thought that blogging by email made a lot of sense before I heard of Posterous. Of course, their implementation of it is pretty great.
Another blogging interface that makes sense to me is a message board. Each blogger would have a forum (subforums would be allowed and would represent all of that blogger's blogs). Each thread (the first post of the thread) in the forum represents a blog post, and others' replies to the thread become the blog comments.
I think that idea might have some legs, as it could help a lot with discoverability. But what do I know?
Another blogging interface that makes sense to me is a message board. Each blogger would have a forum (subforums would be allowed and would represent all of that blogger's blogs). Each thread (the first post of the thread) in the forum represents a blog post, and others' replies to the thread become the blog comments.
I think that idea might have some legs, as it could help a lot with discoverability. But what do I know?
I didn't know it was so new of a feature. I've been using email article publishing since back when PostNuke was the hot web publishing tool.
But, it seems to be wrapping around as the "new hot tech" again because this generation of users has forgotten about it.
But, it seems to be wrapping around as the "new hot tech" again because this generation of users has forgotten about it.
Right, because your boss couldn't possibly be tracking Exchange Server.
On that note, it would be a neat trick if Posterous handled encrypted mail...
On that note, it would be a neat trick if Posterous handled encrypted mail...
Well, yeah, you always have tracking.
What I was more imagining is where if you are in some cube-hell and your boss walked by and saw you on some website typing away, it is easily recognizable. But if you had Outlook up, typing away, it isn't near as noticeable.
One of those office work things, sort of like how old video games had a Boss key.
I've seen enough people doing slack-off stuff like this.
What I was more imagining is where if you are in some cube-hell and your boss walked by and saw you on some website typing away, it is easily recognizable. But if you had Outlook up, typing away, it isn't near as noticeable.
One of those office work things, sort of like how old video games had a Boss key.
I've seen enough people doing slack-off stuff like this.
I have a simple counter. A personal smtp server, set to listen some non-standard port, set up to do TLS. The mail isn't encrypted, and your boss can still say that you sent mails if he dig up a bit, but he won't spy the content of the e-mails anyway.
Just don't make the mistake I did: forget to set up your imap server to use TLS as well.
Just don't make the mistake I did: forget to set up your imap server to use TLS as well.
How does posterous make/plan to make money?
I remember paid subscriptions mentioned in the interview with Calacanis. Freemium tends to work well with this kind of service.
Can you expand on this? IE: Would someone pay to host their blog, or would someone pay to get access to someone else's blog? I've always been really curious about Posterous, Tumblr and all the others who come up against this problem (ie: great product with tons of users who love it and no clear monetization).
You would be surprised. This topic came up for tumblr users and I remember reading that quite a few of them would pay for premium features.
They each all have their own business model, Tumblr I think is still tweaking theirs but they currently offer paid themes. Tumblr users are incredibly supportive of Tumblr.
Same goes for WP, and I'm sure Posterous. You will have the casual 'free' users, and you'll have the users who will actually shell out a significant amount to support their blogging medium.
They each all have their own business model, Tumblr I think is still tweaking theirs but they currently offer paid themes. Tumblr users are incredibly supportive of Tumblr.
Same goes for WP, and I'm sure Posterous. You will have the casual 'free' users, and you'll have the users who will actually shell out a significant amount to support their blogging medium.
Premium features basically. That's how Blogger stayed afloat before it was bought by Google. Posterous got tons of new features since it launched, and it wouldn't be hard for them to hold a few back and create a compelling package. I believe many customers would pay for a solid templating system, for example.
I thought it was by hijacking all your non-affiliated affiliate links?
So this means finding all the places I have a link to an amazon.com book and rewriting the URL with posterous's affiliate id?
can anyone confirm/deny this? I've thought of using something like that for other ideas and wonder if it works, and if so at what volume you need etc.
can anyone confirm/deny this? I've thought of using something like that for other ideas and wonder if it works, and if so at what volume you need etc.
I found this blog post about stack overflow's experience with advertising very interesting.
http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2009/11/our-amazon-advertising...
"So, onward to plan B: we now auto-insert Stack Overflow affiliate info into any amazon book links posted on Stack Overflow. Oh yeah, and here’s the kicker. These silly little rewritten text links work 200%-300% better than our custom amazon book ads!"
http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2009/11/our-amazon-advertising...
"So, onward to plan B: we now auto-insert Stack Overflow affiliate info into any amazon book links posted on Stack Overflow. Oh yeah, and here’s the kicker. These silly little rewritten text links work 200%-300% better than our custom amazon book ads!"
There must be a few more ideas out there where you take something that already exists, improve it by changing one of the variables, add some charming cofounders, add the YC audience, and net out a successful startup.
No password? How do they deal with spoofed email?
i snap photos on my iphone and then email them in. awesome. easier than launching another app.
Posterous email-to-post idea was so simple that it was confusing at the same time. We then saw that they introduced bookmarklet and other standard blogging features. Which to me suggest that not many people are using post-to-email feature even though it is now available at every other micro-blogging services. The simplicity of design almost always works in your favor though.
The main draw of Posterous to me has been the quality: The blogs look great as-is, they have a powerful HTML/CSS editor, the comments are great, etc.