

If I was CEO of Posterous - Tawheed
http://www.tawheedkader.com/2010/06/if-i-was-ceo-of-posterous/

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idoh
And that is why TK isn't the CEO. The whole campaign is really smart and well
executed.

On the PR front it is generating huge buzz. On the business side it makes
perfect sense - expand the market from people who want to start a new blog to
also include people who already have blogs.

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Tawheed
Just to be clear, I think the campaign is really smart as well. But, my
article has nothing to do with that -- my article talks about what the bigger
vision around Posterous is (i.e whether they should strive to be yet another
blogging platform or try to take a different approach to revolutionize
personal publishing)

// I made this clearer in the post.

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jasonlbaptiste
Posterous is blogging that just f'n works. My mom uses it and it suits her
great. Wordpress was just a bit much for her. The support is great too. I
actually got a kick when she said: "That nice fella Gary helped me out".
Wordpress rocks too, but they're different things. I feel like there are a lot
of people out there using Wordpress that would love something simpler like
what Posterous offers, but just don't know it's there. If I were CEO of
Posterous, I would be doing the same exact thing.

~~~
edanm
This agrees with the OP. As I understand it, he's basically saying "don't go
after people who have blogs and convert them, go after people who would start
a blog if it wasn't so complicated".

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jamiequint
I strongly disagree with this opinion.

First, the reason that people make big money coming up with custom solutions
for Wordpress is because its a lot of work to get things to the state of
"exactly what the client wants". It would be a distraction and a waste of time
to pursue the creation of many "starter" niches. I find it kind of ironic that
the author suggests that they step back and take a look at the forest while
suggesting they take a more myopic view of Posterous as a business. The reason
Posterous isn't a blog consulting company is the same reason Facebook isn't a
gaming company but is rather a platform for gaming companies (and many other
things).

Second, it doesn't fit into the goal of Posterous as a company which from my
external perspective appears to be making blogging stupidly easy and
accessible for anyone.

Third, scale first. Its easy to attack verticals later once you already own
the space (in this case blogging).

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acl
It's "If I _were_ the CEO of Posterous."

Sorry to be the grammar pedant, but this one always bugs me.

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itrekkie
Although this bugs me too, it's not incorrect. It's perfectly understandable
in American English, and "correct" in other varieties of English.

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shasta
They mean different things, no? If I were CEO, I'd do things differently. If I
was CEO, I don't remember it.

~~~
mattmaroon
I'd say you'd have a bright future as a copy editor waiting for you if you
desired, but I don't think there are any bright futures left in publishing.

~~~
swombat
What about that big furnace up ahead? Seems pretty bright from here. It's
getting nearer/brighter all the time, too!

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megamark16
Considering how often we hear about WordPress sites getting hacked, this
campaign may really hit home for a large number of bloggers.

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petervandijck
I can't believe that _all_ these companies don't make it easier to import. A
really (but really) great Wordpress importer must surely make your service
attractive to the millions of WP'ers out there? Writing importers for similar
services is a great idea if you want to grow.

~~~
mattmaroon
Actually they do. Most every blog service has both an import and and export,
and even though the resulting XML isn't formatted identically, usually an
export from any major service will import successfully into any other major
service.

FWIW: I've done imports between blogspot, movable type, and wordpress a number
of times with rarely a problem.

I suppose it's sort of diabolically evil of Posterous here. They're really
just releasing a feature every other blogging service has had for years, but
doing it in a way that's great PR.

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adrianwaj
John Mayer's said that Twitter's out and Tumblr's in.
<http://www.geekosystem.com/john-mayer-twitter-tumblr/>

Ashton Kutcher's supposedly "directly responsible" for <http://nowmov.com>
existing. (cross between Chatroulette interface and a Tweetmeme for YouTube
videos.) [http://techcrunch.com/2010/05/07/yc-funded-nowmov-sit-
back-r...](http://techcrunch.com/2010/05/07/yc-funded-nowmov-sit-back-relax-
and-watch-an-endless-stream-of-youtube-videos/)

If I were Posterous, I'd create a Nowmov for Posterous posts, and then go find
some high-profile feedback.

edit: the other thing I'd be interested in seeing on Posterous is an easy way
to cross post to other people's group blogs, and some incentive to do so. For
example, I created a group blog <http://hackerbra.in>, but there are no users
to post to it. However, there are posts by hackers on Posterous that could be
submitted to it; the question is how to make that worthwhile? Could it be
automatically done, eg I choose some blogs and have the new blog fill up with
posts automagically?

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jholloway
I have always felt like Posterous was a solution in search of a problem. I
don't have anything against them, I just prefer other platforms better.

Also, I'd love to see some numbers, but I would bet that a far larger number
of people post via the web or other methods than do by email, despite that
being its original purpose.

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aik
Funny - this post and these comments brought me to import my family wordpress
blog into posterous and pitch it to my wife. We'll see what she says.

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revorad
I'm guessing they are not interested in selling to small businesses and
professionals; they probably want to sell a high-priced "enterprise version"
to corporates and keep it free for the masses. They may possibly make money
off the free blogs with some ad network (perhaps they have something cooking
there and that's why they don't allow google ads).

</speculation>

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samratjp
What I find most useful about Posterous is how dead simple it is to share
media from email for virtually painless hosting! The only way anyone could
beat that is to use Dropbox!! <wishful thinking>Now, imagine if you could just
post to your blog by putting something in your Dropbox folder. Hmmm, I hope
you posterous guys are listening.</wishful thinking>

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brlewis
You can post photos to <http://ourdoings.com/> via dropbox. It's a blog-like
photo sharing site.

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rameshnid
That's like sailing on 10 boats and one will sink :)

10 industries is a lot of work. The idiosyncrasies will kill you. Be as
generic as possible.

I say 'Go after Wordpress'

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dnsworks
Is this so different than say Apple's "I'm a Mac, I'm a PC" advertisements?
Posterous believes they have a system which has a lower barrier of entry for
users of these other platforms. The only thing different is that they are
taking a more direct advertising route than word of mouth, and are using
tactics and advertising styles that you usually only see in much larger
companies. Good on them for aiming high!

