19 February 2013

Posthaven launches as Twitter to shut down Posterous

 By Tim Gibbon

Social blogging platform Posterous that launched in 2008 is to close it doors on 30 April, less than a year after its announcement that is was acquired by microblogging service Twitter.  In an announcement on its blog Founder and CEO Sachin Agarwal wrote that the service will switch off its Posterous.com website and mobile apps, with no further access to edit content from its shutdown date. 
It was also announced via its Twitter account.

Posterous will turn off on April 30 post.ly/ACMqg

— posterous (@posterous) February 15, 2013

The post guides users how to back-up their content (Spaces) and how move their sites to other services such as blogging WordPress or Squarespace (although initially didn’t work so well).

Posterous Spaces backup tool available now post.ly/A3oRw

— posterous (@posterous) December 27, 2012

1. Go to http://posterous.com/#backup.
2. Click to request a backup of your Space by clicking “Request Backup” next to your Space name.
3. When your backup is ready, you'll receive an email.
4. Return to http://posterous.com/#backup to download a .zip file.

In addition to the back-up and transfer of Posterous sites to the services such as above, Techcrunch reports that other cofounders Garry Tan and Brett Gibson have team up to create Posthaven.   The new blogging platform priced at $5 per month pledges that it won’t show ads, seek investors and will strive to be live ‘as long as humanly possible’ - so posts and photographs don’t have to be moved.  Posthaven is accepting registrations now and is enabling users to reserve website names in the first month of credit.  The site states at sign-up that a working version that can import Posterous blogs will be available in late February.

Posterous is credited with being vocal on privacy and a niche service that’s influential in disrupting and innovating the competitive social space.   In such a competitive space between what may be considered the top tier social superpowers, Twitter will be seeking to maximise the juice from Posterous into the services it continues to develop.  How and if it achieves this remains to be seen.

In a digital world where so much appears to be free, it will be interesting to see how Posthaven develops as many users now accept that there isn’t much in life that is free.   With so many services falling to the wayside pre and post acquisition leaving less than impressed users behind with no recourse, it will a lesson to see if they now prefer to opt for paid models where there are more guarantees.  
 
Were you a Posterous fan and if so, what have you replaced and/or moved to?

A version of this article first appeared on Technorati.

Categories: Technology, Social media, News

Tags: Posterous, Twitter, social network, blogging platform, Blogging, microblogging, mobile apps, WordPress, Squarespace, Posthaven