Posterous

Posterous is the dead simple place to post everything.

Requiring no set up or sign up, Posterous allows users to enter the world of online blogging through the use of email, having all the tools of a normal online blog or website including all types of media, comments, social networking tools and a fully customisable layout. One simply writes an email and Posterous does the rest.

Therefore, it is advantageous for someone who doesn’t really have the time or patience to blog in a number of ways.

It is quite simple to use and its capabilities are quite amazing. Once a user has sent their first email post to Posterous, an account is created using that email address where a user can then create their profile, choose a theme or use the default. You can then choose from various settings which include adding password protection to a blog for privacy or allowing Posterous to update a person’s social networking accounts with the emailed blog post at the same time as Posterous is updated. A user can also attach files to the email including images, music and video which Posterous will style into an image gallery or video channel as appropriate.

The service can be of great benefit to large organisations in many ways. We live in the age of email movers, where many people own Blackberrys or iPhones and use them to access their email on the move. Posterous allows for blogging on the move and is great for people who live by their emails and don’t get a chance to go onto any websites while at work or home. Multiple employees within businesses can write their own posts to the same blog with Posterous’ Group Posts feature and if a company wishes to use their own domain name (for example, instead of http://www.scorecomms.posterous.com, we could have http://www.scorecomms.com/blog) this is easily set up. The look and feel of the blog can also be customised to match a company’s corporate identity. The advantages of a company having any form of blog is huge, especially from a search engine perspective, making Posterous a great asset.

We were recently instructed to create a customised Posterous account for a UK Government Department. It was the first time that we had heard of the service but our experience in creating their account was a very positive one. Easy to set-up and use with a simple admin panel to customise the features required and anyone with HTML and CSS skills can easily customise a theme layout. All functions are documented and already laid out in the correct places and all it takes a a few tweaks. Personally, I think it is a great platform to use and although it may well be an unknown quantity at the moment, we expect to see it up there with the other key blogging and social media platforms before too long.