Date:13/03/2011 URL:
http://www.thehindu.com/2011/03/13/stories/2011031364230800.htm
Front Page
Post it via Posterous
Paromita Pain
A San Francisco-based start-up has created this technology to make
blogging as simple as emailing
It allows users to post photos and updates
They can also create a website to share any amount of media with friends
Brain behind Posterous:
Sachin Agarwal and Garry Tan.
SAN FRANCISCO: 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 [email protected]. 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.
Renuka E,
Section Officer,
ICT Centre for Visually Challlenged,
CHMK Library,
University ofCalicut,
Malappuram Dist.,
Kerala.
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