Garry Tan - Comments

Garry Tan commented on a blog post on Disqus

Tuesday at 12:59 am - Link

"Hey Ryan Let me know how we can fix your email address issues. Do you get a confirm every time you post? We have been seeing that with people using gmail for corporate mail (hosted domains) and are rolling a fix asap. Other than that, our upstream provider (textmarks) doesn't support MMS at the moment. We're on the lookout for better providers. If you send an MMS to post@posterous.com that does work, however, from what we've seen with many mobile carriers. -g" - Garry Tan

Garry Tan shared an item on Google Reader

aweissman.com

August 24 at 10:52 am - Link

betaworks is doing some great work these days. - Garry Tan

Garry Tan shared an item on Google Reader

Tasty Blog Snack - Posterous

August 21 at 1:01 pm - Link

iJustine is awesome - Garry Tan

Garry Tan shared an item on Google Reader

Twitter / Guy Kawasaki: Has anyone tried http://pos...

August 19 at 10:16 pm - Link

Guy Kawasaki is awesome! - Garry Tan

Garry Tan shared an item on Google Reader

Y Combinator Demo Day: CO2Stats, Posterous and others show their stuff » VentureBeat

August 19 at 7:36 pm - Link

Anthony Ha was writing this at Red Rock in Mountain View next to us after the YC Demo Day. We said hello, naturally. =) - Garry Tan

Garry Tan shared an item on Google Reader

SarahLacy.com: American Startup: Demo Day Summer 2008

August 17 at 9:52 pm - Link

Sarah Lacy weighs in on the current batch of YC startups. - Garry Tan

Garry Tan shared an item on Google Reader

[bijan sabet] the personal tumblelog of Bijan Sabet

August 17 at 4:41 pm - Link

We're NOT gunning for tumblr. We like tumblr. We even post to them. =) - Garry Tan

Garry Tan shared an item on Google Reader

Build A Custom Search Engine Using Your Social Bookmarks - ReadWriteWeb

August 5 at 2:40 pm - Link

Novel use of Posterous for custom bookmark search engine. - Garry Tan

Garry Tan shared an item on Google Reader

Coding Horror: Commandos, Infantry, and Police

August 4 at 6:31 pm - Link

Being a commando is hella fun. - Garry Tan

Garry Tan commented on a blog post on Disqus

Re: I Still Love Twitter

August 3 at 11:30 pm - Link

Aditya Kothadiya and Svartling liked this

"Posterous is really a companion to Twitter. Email post@posterous.com and it'll appear everywhere, including your Twitter if you set up autopost. You can use us kind of like twitpic, only you get your own ongoing blog. It's especially useful if you have something slightly longer to say than what will fit in 140 characters. Or if you just want to fire an email from your blackberry or iphone and have it appear." - Garry Tan

Garry Tan shared an item on Google Reader

Lumpenprogrammers

August 2 at 1:51 pm - Link

I guess i'm a hippie programmer. - Garry Tan

Garry Tan commented on a blog post on Disqus

Re: Posterous becomes a one-stop-shop for cross platform blogging

July 31 at 11:37 pm - Link

"MG, thanks for the mention. You're right, there are some great ways posterous can make both mobile and desktop blogging easier, and it's all because email is so natural for everyone. -Garry, cofounder, posterous.com" - Garry Tan

Posterous: an entry from The Official Posterous Posterous

Autopost to everywhere, even your existing blogs

July 29 at 10:09 pm - Link

I'm not sure I like the idea of multi posting the same content to several blogs at once. - Andy Roberts

I have to re-think using this feature... - Rebkin

Our users asked for it and we delivered. But we're gonna go back to focusing on building a great blog platform, so even if this feature isn't for you, we've got more coming that we think you'll like. - Garry Tan

I love the fast development cycle you guys are able to push out. - Andy Roberts

No. Be careful for duplicate content issues. - Svartling

But posterous is one of the best microblogging / blogging services out there. - Svartling

Vance Stevens bookmarked a page on delicious

Posterous - The place to post everything. Just email us. Dead simple blog by email.

July 30 at 7:13 am - Link

Garry Tan liked this

not sure what it does but you can email attach anything here (it says) and get a new yourname.posterous.com (Posterous works wherever you have email. ) - Vance Stevens

Vance, try us. =) - Garry Tan

Evgeni Leshtanski shared an item on Google Reader

Posterous grasping at straws?

July 30 at 10:27 pm - Link

Haha, we don't think we're grasping at straws. =) - Garry Tan

Garry Tan shared an item on Google Reader

Autopost to everything. Why we did it. - sachin's posterous

July 30 at 7:07 pm - Link

Why we did it... - Garry Tan

Garry Tan shared an item on Google Reader

Technology Will Save Newspapers, Right? | Media Industry Blog | BNET

July 30 at 7:07 pm - Link

bnet.com coverage - Garry Tan

Duncan Riley posted an entry on The Inquisitr

Posterous grasping at straws?

July 30 at 5:46 pm - Link

costis, Igor Poltavskiy, Kenichi Matsumoto, Phil (scribkin) and 5 other people liked this

I don't get the forwarding to other blogs as a business model, unless that model is to drive search engine traffic. It certainly doesn't focus on Posterous as a destination - Duncan Riley

Isn't evolution of the service part of the game? Being a gateway is not a bad position and the mail to blog posts is a fantastic feature. - Rob Diana

Show 14 more comments

@rob agree on the email feature; i'm seeing a lot of people in my co. struggle with what I think is a really simple blogging interface... but if they could just email things in -- because everyone can use email -- i think that would solve tons of problems. - .LAGizmoto

@Duncan Im not following you.There are so many businesses based on what you are calling 'grasping @ straws'. Read your article & although you have a fair point you are making more of it than there is (big surprise) in reality.Ping.fm is doing this, is their model poor? Is Posterous changing their business model?Maybe. Posterous needs to grow & they need exposure, this could be a good way of doing it.Also most Internet users read, never follow and especially never write so Posterous may get their eyeballs - Roger Kondrat

Roger, I hit Ping.fm to use it. I don't have to hit Posterous to use it, and if I forward stuff I won't even be sharing links to the service. If you're giving people a reason to never visit the service, either when creating content or reading it (and I'd note the difference with Twitter is that you still pull data from Twitter, so there is some interaction there), and the service is free, where's the business model? You can't sell ads...unless you start adding them to posts, but most wouldn't stand for it - Duncan Riley

Utterz has the same problem. I love Utterz as a service, but the business model when you become nothing more than an intermediary is weak. And it's not as though people will pay for it unless there are no alternatives. TubeMogul has a premium service for example, and their competitors all charge, but that's a compelling use case in terms of being the intermediary - Duncan Riley

So, know how FF is like our display console to all our schtuff? What if Posterous becomes something more like Twhirl, only way more nuanced, and starting with email, but leading into several other gateways. It'd be like ping.fm and all those other things, too. Ish. - Chris Brogan

You actually never have to touch Ping.fm to use it. You can post via email. You can even pick where to post to and what type of post to make. Without ever touching the site. Maybe Posterous wants to be a better Ping.fm/Hellotxt. - Rahsheen(isSoAwesome)

How is this different than Ping.fm? I don't linger there either but they and many others see a business model. Also at least Posterous has a chance with their sight having a copy of your content. You are assuming users will care between your stuff and Posterous and I am not convinced users give a damn. Whichever comes up first in Google Wins. - Roger Kondrat

Chris, unless they can make a case out of stuffing ads into the reply email you get, I can't see it. Twhirl is an interface in its own right, with some hard challenges to monetize, but it has eyeballs to eventually try. Posterous is email as the interface..I just cant see how you'd monetize it or make a business out of it, unless it's a Twitter style flip or flop play - Duncan Riley

@Chris you are making sense. I could go along with that. If I was in their shoes I think you would have my attention. - Roger Kondrat

Roger, definitely could be a Google play as I noted in the post. Different to Ping.fm: easy, most people still hit Ping.fm to make entries, they have actual eyeballs (although I do note that Ping.fm is starting to appear in 3rd party apps). Posterous is focused on email...the whole selling point is you don't have to hit the site to create a post. There's no eyeballs in creation. - Duncan Riley

I suspect that they're pursuing a grow it as quickly as possible strategy and intend on working the rest out later. Risky, but it doesn't always fail - Duncan Riley

@Duncan yeah for sure I would say they are making this move so they can grow their service quickly. But don't underestimate how many regular internet users could read the content they 'borrow' from you when you would use their service to forward on to your blog... Its tough, I am definitely curious how they will work out. - Roger Kondrat

Hey Duncan and friends. Just posted at length on the blog post itself, but then forgot that FriendFeed adds yet another comment stream too. =) Re: ping.fm /hellotxt -- do they host your files? We haven't had the time to try them, but my guess is no. They're just a pipe. Posterous hosts everything and makes posting rich media brain dead simple. In addition, you also get a posterous blog address too. We're going back to focus on blog features, so that blog is just going to get better with time. Thanks all! - Garry Tan

@chris that 'posterous becomes more like twhirl' idea is pretty profound i think - .LAGizmoto

duncan: do you know if they have raised any money? - Edwin Khodabakchian

@lag @Chris once you take @chris's thought forward one may consider posterous as an excellent cross-platform version of Twhirl and I wonder what would happen to their blog and transmission tools if they made a good mobile version... Thoughts? - Roger Kondrat

@roger interesting question. when I walk around my (brand consulting firm's) office -- the one app that is open on almost everyone's screen is: E-mail. Be they consultant, designer, finance, facilities. it seems to me like everyone knows how to use email. so whatever the future of "regular" users getting into this self-publishing/social media schtick, if there's a way for them to do it via email, that's a HUGE win...and that would apply to mobile, because the E-mail ui and experience is still the same. - .LAGizmoto

Garry Tan commented on a blog post on Disqus

Re: Posterous grasping at straws?

July 30 at 6:32 pm - Link

"Hey Duncan, Thanks for your mention on inquisitr, again! And we're delighted to have you as a user too. Sachin and I have been talking for some time about building a service that we ourselves would use. We want to do the things that most other blog platforms don't think to do-- things that are useful and solve problems for people. Paul Graham talks at length about this in his essay, Be Good (http://www.paulgraham.com/good...). And what this means is building features that are just good and useful for our users, almost in the face of what conventional wisdom would dictate a self-interested rational actor would do. Here's an example -- why is it that sites like Facebook don't always do comment-replies by email? Replying to an email is the natural response to an email notification about a comment. Either it's hard for them to understand SMTP (something I highly doubt), or they want to drive pageviews and traffic to their websites. At the core of that sort of attitude is not being good..." - Garry Tan

Garry Tan shared an item on Google Reader

From Posterous with love - MMartin Live Notebook

July 30 at 2:59 am - Link

Thanks MMartin for being a totally awesome user. - Garry Tan

Garry Tan shared an item on Google Reader

Dead Simple: Podcast Through Email

July 30 at 1:40 am - Link

About.com picked us up! - Garry Tan

Garry Tan shared an item on Google Reader

Posterous is a brilliant blogging tool

July 29 at 5:34 am - Link

His twitter said "potential blogging dinosaur killer." Well, if we keep getting better, it's really just a matter of time. =) - Garry Tan