Posterous

What did it do?

Posterous was a simple blogging platform launched in May 2008 and designed especially for mobile blogging. Users could publish a post by sending an email with photos, audio, documents and video attached, and could automatically push their content to Flickr, Twitter and Facebook. The San Francisco-based company was backed by Y Combinator.

Why did it shut down?

Posterous lost its independence in March 2012, when most of its team was brought in by Twitter. The team was moved onto Twitter's products and, according to TechCrunch, the platform went on serving a dwindling user base. On 15 February 2013 Posterous announced that, in order to focus entirely on Twitter, the service would close on 30 April 2013. Users were given time to back up their content and move it to other platforms.

The story

Posterous's promise fitted into a single sentence: send an email and your blog is ready. On the platform, which went live in San Francisco in May 2008, users could publish a post with an email carrying photos, MP3s, documents and video, and the content could be pushed to Flickr, Twitter and Facebook at the same time. The Y Combinator-backed start-up was founded by Sachin Agarwal and Garry Tan together with Brett Gibson.

The simplicity quickly caught on. In June 2008 TechCrunch wrote that Posterous beat Tumblr on simplicity. Many social media commentators saw the platform as the leading free app for lifestreaming; interest grew further when social media expert Steve Rubel announced that he was moving his blogging entirely to Posterous. The company built its own URL shortener, let users publish on their own domain names and released mobile apps. the3six5, a storytelling project built on Posterous, was nominated for a Webby award in 2011.

Convenience came at a price, too. Which blog a post landed on was determined by the email's sender address; because these addresses could easily be spoofed, there was a risk of unwanted content being published on someone else's blog. Posterous said it weeded out fake emails with various filters but did not disclose its methods.

In March 2012 Twitter brought most of the Posterous team on board. As the team was moved onto Twitter's products, the platform stayed open for a while longer, but in TechCrunch's words it was serving a dwindling user base. On 15 February 2013 Posterous announced that, in order to focus entirely on Twitter, it would close the site and mobile apps on 30 April; users were given time to download their content. After the closure, a farewell page featuring an image of an astronaut appeared at Posterous addresses.

On the same day, Garry Tan and Brett Gibson announced Posthaven, a paid alternative at USD 5 a month; they pledged that it would never be sold and would never seek investors. The lesson of Posterous is that the future of a product hosting user content is no longer in its own hands from the moment it is acquired.

Lessons for founders

• When selling a platform that hosts user content, have export and migration routes ready from the outset in case it closes.
• For convenience features such as publishing by email, build strong authentication; spoofed sender addresses create a risk of unwanted content.
• A promise of permanence is a powerful competitive advantage; Posthaven pitched itself to users of the closing Posterous with a pledge never to be sold.

Sources

1. Posterous (Wikipedia)
2. Posterous Will Shut Down On April 30th, Co-Founder Garry Tan Launches Posthaven To Save Your Sites (TechCrunch, 2013-02-15)
3. Posterous for iPhone: Instant Photo and Video Blogging (Mashable, 2009-08-20)
4. https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q892309
5. Wikipedia (Turkish)
6. Wikipedia (English)

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