Posterous: it's like Tumblr via email

Filed under: Blogging, Social Software, web 2.0

Posterous: it's like Tumblr via email

by Jay Hathaway Jul 2nd 2008

Posterous is a new blogging service that's being touted as even simpler and easier to use than Tumblr. The process is extraordinarily simple: send something to post@posterous.com. Hey, look, you've started a blog. When you want to add something to it, send another e-mail to the same address. Simple as that. Supported attachments include everything from JPGs to PDFs to Mp3s.

It's not as if Tumblr is extraordinarily complicated, but Posterous presents some interesting possibilities. You can post your cameraphone pics and other moblogging material via e-mail, and have comments sent to you and reply to them on the go (again, via email). Also, we're not complaining about a blogging service that lets you skip past all those annoying signup processes. You already have an email account, so what do you need yet another login for?

Posterous obviously has to be careful about security, since forging email addresses isn't all that difficult. Michael Arrington offered a free TechCrunch t-shirt to the first person to forge a post on his Posterous blog, and the challenge was over pretty quickly. Posterous addresses these security concerns in their FAQ: "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."

Tags: blogging, email, moblogging, Posterous, Tumblr

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

xlerate said 4:38PM on 7-02-2008

This is freakin awesome!

I was using a combo of cellblock.com, tumblr & twitter to accomplish what it looks like Posterous has managed to do here.

Now I wonder if I can access my account via multiple addresses?

Clarion said 4:53PM on 7-02-2008

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I have Tumblr, and I'm able to email posts already. So besides the lack of signup, what other incentive is there to this?

Garry Tan said 7:50PM on 7-03-2008

Hi there

Posterous just launched on Saturday and we are operating on the simple maxim of ship early and ship often. We wanted to release the most useful early version of our work and get better fast. We ARE missing some stuff, but we won't be for long.

@xlerate - yes, you can add email addresses to your account and they all work.

@clarion - We're an ally of Tumblr. The long term goal is for us to become a distribution point for all your social stuff online. I hate having to upload a photo 5 times for it to show up everywhere -- Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, my blog, my Tumblr, etc. We want to make it as simple as one email attachment and you're done.

Thanks downloadsquad for covering us!

-Garry, cofounder, Posterous.com

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