Posterous

Posterous is a new and different kind of blogging service with unique features compared to other free blog platforms. The service is designed for on-the-go bloggers who wants to make quick blog entries without going through the process of using a blog editor. Although it has a resident rich text blog editor, Posterous blog entries can also be published through email and SMS.



Account registration in Posterous is also a unique process. In order to create an account in Posterous, you must send an email containing your first blog entry to post@posterous.com. The subject of your email will be the title of your post and the email message will be the body.

What I like about Posterous is its portability. Using email to make blog entries is a great idea. What makes it even more useful is that you can attach different types of media along with your “post” email. I tried sending a blog entry with an image attached to it and the result was great. Large images will automatically be resized and can also be viewed in its full size. It also lets the user to download the full size image through a link that the engine created. Sending a zip file of photos and images will result to a gallery type blog entry. Attached MP3’s will be playable using their branded ephonic player while documents are automatically converted to iPaper.

The New Feature

Previously, Posterous already offered auto posting to Twitter and Flicker accounts which is great. You photo posts can immediately be seen on your Flickr account and you Twitter followers will get updates each time you make an entry. Now, they are offering auto posting to other blogs which confuses me strategic-wise. I understand the fact that Posterous wants to extend their usability but this act might seem like too desperate a move. The service already shows a lot of potential in becoming a full pledge blogging platform packed with easy to use features. By doing this, they are driving users away from actually using their service as a blogging platform, and besides, bloggers who are concerned with SEO will question this issue of having double posts on different blogs. That being said, I can think of a few uses for the new feature. Since Posterous hosts all your images and files, you can use Posterous as a gateway to your blog posts on your 'other' blogs. The images will be auto resized and you can even post podcasts without using plugins or inserting codes.

Posterous offers a unique and easy way of blogging. I see it as a great tool for casual bloggers who just enjoy posting from their mobile phones and anything that has email. It would seem more appropriate if they focus more on creating a name for themselves as a blogging platform instead of being used as a mere gateway to popular blogging services. They may not get millions of users right away but it will surely build an organic amount of loyal users as time passes.