PicPosterous for the iPhone is nearly perfect
I've spent the last few weeks with Posterous, a blogging platform from Sachin Agarwal and Garry Tan. The result is both a modest record of my travels and a powerful enthusiasm for the service.
Posterous is going to be huge. Even Andy says so.
Over the years, I've used every blogging platform I've found, including (but not limited to) WordPress, Typepad, MovableType, Squarespace, Vox, Livejournal, Blogger and Textpattern. The easiest among those are the hosted solutions, like Typepad, Livejournal, Blogger, Squarespace and Vox (note that Typepad, Livejournal and Vox are all products of Six Apart). WordPress and MovableType are (usually) self-hosted and require the blogger* to create and link to a database.
After installation is complete, they all require some degree of fiddling. Customizing the layout, design, colors, graphics etc. takes time. Adding something like an image gallery is even more time consuming, and often requires a plug-in which you must find, upload, configure and test on your own.
By contrast, here's how you create a complete blog with Posterous:
Send an email message to post@posterous.com.
That's it.
Here's how you create a full-featured, thumbnailed photo gallery with built-in navigation on Posterous: Email your photos to post@posterous.com.
Want to post a video? Same thing. It'll even encode it for you. Send nearly any codec you want.
It's brilliant because there's nothing to learn. Everyone knows how to send an email message and customers can use the email client they already know; the client that's always available via a laptop, phone or iPod. Additionally, Posterous can notify your other accounts, like Facebook and Twitter, each time an update is posted.
The only drawback I found was in updating a gallery throughout the day. Let's say I want to document a trip with multiple photos added to a single post as the day progressed. How can I do that? PicPosterous [App Store link] is the answer. I spent the last couple of weeks using a beta of PicPosterous and spoke with Sachin about it. Click below to read my reaction and conversation with Sachin.
*Some web hosting companies provide a one-click install for WordPress and MovableType. Wordpress.com also provides free and premium plans for WordPress users.
When PicPosterous is first launched, you'll be asked to allow the app to note your location. That completes your setup. From there, all you've got to do is send a photo along. Either choose one from your library or snap a new shot. You'll get a preview and an opportunity to accept or reject your image and create a new album for it. From there it's posted to your Posterous site.
The next time you take a photo, PicPosterous remembers the album you used last. When I recently spent a day at Fenway Park in Boston, I took picture after picture with PicPosterous, each adding one to my "Boston" gallery. In that way, the app sorts your photos into "events," which is exactly how Sachin describes it:
There are other services that do photo sharing more in a 'stream' format, like flickr. But that always bugged me because your photos are in the wrong order! The newest photos are on top; that's not the way people want to see photos. I want to create an album, and then post photos in chronological order. When people go to that album, the first photo they see is the one where I'm walking into Disneyland, not the one when I'm leaving at the end of the night."
Posting photos is as simple as using the iPhone's built-in camera app. In fact, posting a photo to your site is only one additional click (choose your album). That way, you can take photos with PicPosterous and get them into a nice gallery with practically the same effort (if touching a button beneath a glass screen can be called "effort") as storing local photos with the camera app. Uploading video uses the exact same process. You can go back and add to albums you previously created at any time.
As I suggested in the title, for me it's nearly perfect. I do find myself wanting to add captions to photos, which is something I can't do. Also, the 3rd-party service notifications (like Twitter and Facebook) only occur when an album is first created and not when additional photos are added; granted, a notification with every photo might well overwhelm your socially networked 'friends' and turn them into former friends.
Those are minor complaints that don't detract in any significant way from the pleasure of using this app. PicPosterous is available from the App Store now and is free.
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Multimedia Software Internet Tools iPhone App Store App Review
I've spent the last few weeks with Posterous, a blogging platform from Sachin Agarwal and Garry Tan. The result is both a modest record of...
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I have 3 albums so far. When I start PicPosterous it gives me the option to upload to the album I choose.
A batch upload too would be really really nice.
has anyone figured out how can i upload an image to an album previously created, not the most recently created album?
August 26 2009 at 8:29 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyI agree, there needs to be a way to add a caption to each photo. Also, I have yet to find a way to delete a single picture from an album. Using the tiny thumbnails on the iPhone to identify the pictures is not ideal and I've already uploaded a few that I would like to remove.
Oh, and some kind of batch upload would be good too, instead of having to upload each photo individually.
Used it for the first time on Sunday. Setup and signing up for the service was all done from my iPhone. Uploaded the pictures quickly over 3G painlessly.
Would love to have a caption/text option though.
The only downside is that you cannot remove a single image from an album without deleting the album and reuploading it (or am I missing something?)
August 25 2009 at 11:13 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyPerfect timing. I'm going on a trip soon and I'm looking for the best system to collect and share pics and short comments. One cool thing about Posterous: even if you email pics from the iPhone's native apps, Posterous captures the geotag information that the phone embeds and right below the picture it says where it was taken with a link to a google map showing the exact location. SWEET!
- robogobo: yeah, for a couple Stanford grads, there is some weird usability going on. I emailed in my first post. Great! Now I have to read the email that arrives and click a link to pick a URL and set a password. The URL box was pre-populated with my name and I thought SWEET! and continued, only to be told that that name wasn't available. WTF?!? Also, there's only one "pick your password" box, not the usual two, so you'd better hope you don't make any typos or you'll never get in. :-)
Where's a sample iPhone posted time lapse gallery to check out?
August 24 2009 at 8:21 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyOK I understand you like Posterous. But here's how your description looks to the uninitiated:
"want to set up a blog, it just takes one step, and then you're done! do that step, and then it just takes one step more, and then you're done! and then one more step."
And so on. I did your first step to try it out, by sending and email. Then I realized maybe the blog was setup somewhere, but where? So i clicked an edit link and it took me to the Posterous website, where I had to click another link to creat an account and give the blog a namae, and then add a password, etc etc.
So I just thought maybe you were too excited and forgot it's actually a bit more involved than you remembered. But you should probably try to be more accurate when plugging a new service.
Really, Posterous has just replaced the typical post form with email. That's great. It's cool. But it was a wee bit misrepresented by your post.
I played with it yesterday at the ball game, and it works as advertised. Really pretty slick way to tell a photo story of an event.
Like others, I would love to have text fields available to comment on each photo as it goes up.
And like others, I would like to be able to control when it posts to my other sites, as that is my primary use for Posterous.
Love what these guys are doing!
Hey, nice post and I agree on most of it. Some features that I wish for:
* Status updates. I want to post just my status to Posterous + Twitter + Facebook. No pic or vid, just a 140 characters text post.
* I want to be able to select what services to autopost to, for each upload from PicP. Also, I want to make output templates.
On thing in your post makes me wonder: "You can go back and add to albums you previously created at any time.". Can I? Where? I missed that feature but if you say it is there, I can't find it! Please tell me :)
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