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Launching Posterous Groups: Smart email lists made easy

blog.posterous.com

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Re: Launching Posterous Groups: Smart email lists made easy

#31

Post by sbisker »

revorad wrote: post #26
wdewind wrote: post #3

Cool. What is Posterous's business model?

They've now got a solid product and userbase. The business model could be any of advertising, affiliate marketing, lead generation, premium features, ecommerce.

Totally agreed. But which is it? The decision on any of those models, if not properly considered, could have impacts that reverberate through their product and userbase. Advertising, done wrong, could break their clean aesthetic. Affiliate marketing, done wrong, could hurt people's trust. You get the idea. The business model is a part of the design, in that it works in concert with it - and people are eager to see the fuller vision of posterous realized.

That said, I agree. I think it's great that they're taking some time to see how their product evolves, especially when they seem to sincerely want to "change the game." One thing YC companies seem to do well is that they have the patience to take the time to explore those markets alongside their users, instead of dragging them into a business plan that detracts from how users want to use the product in their daily lives.

EDIT: Whoops, this answers part of the question, from their FAQ: Yes, Posterous is enthusiastically a free service. Later, we'll be adding premium features we know you'll love, but there will always be a useful free version you can use.

Re: Launching Posterous Groups: Smart email lists made easy

#33

Post by emmett »

rantfoil wrote: post #12
emmett wrote: post #5

Bug: I already had a posterous account, and whenever I try to create a new group it just sends me in circles and breaks. :-(

We're tracking this bug down now -- mind letting me know repro steps? We'll fix it asap -- garry@posterous.com Thanks Emmett!

Looks like it's fixed now :-)

Re: Launching Posterous Groups: Smart email lists made easy

#34

Post by revorad »

sbisker wrote: post #31
revorad wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They've now got a solid product and userbase. The business model could be any of advertising, affiliate marketing, lead generation, premium features, ecommerce.

Totally agreed. But which is it? The decision on any of those models, if not properly considered, could have impacts that reverberate through their product and userbase. Advertising, done wrong, could break their clean aesthetic. Affiliate marketing, done wrong, could hurt people's trust. You get the idea. The business model is a part of the design, in that it works in concert with it - and people are eager to see th…

Sachin's mentioned planned premium features in the past, so I think that's a good bet. They could also do one-off deals with big companies, like they once did with Coca-cola and Loopt recently did with Virgin. They've got a good brand and smart founders, I expect they will do just fine.

Re: Launching Posterous Groups: Smart email lists made easy

#35

Post by sbisker »

revorad wrote: post #34
sbisker wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally agreed. But which is it? The decision on any of those models, if not properly considered, could have impacts that reverberate through their product and userbase. Advertising, done wrong, could break their clean aesthetic. Affiliate marketing, done wrong, could hurt people's trust. You get the idea. The business model is a part of the design, in that it works in concert with it - and people are eager to see th…

Sachin's mentioned planned premium features in the past, so I think that's a good bet. They could also do one-off deals with big companies, like they once did with Coca-cola and Loopt recently did with Virgin. They've got a good brand and smart founders, I expect they will do just fine.

Neat, I didn't know about the Coca-cola deal. Which if you're as curious as I was, is described here: http://ycombinator.posterous.com/posterous-s08-jumps-on-the-... It's great to see what companies can come up with. :) Thanks.

Re: Launching Posterous Groups: Smart email lists made easy

#36

Post by a4agarwal »

revorad wrote: post #23
a4agarwal wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We found that Facebook Groups felt more like a group wall than a product for sharing and collaboration. You can't send attachments via email, and you can't reply with anything besides plain text. Posterous Groups makes email the core of the product. You can do everything via email including creating a group and replying with rich media attachments. There aren't any restrictions on what you can post. Facebook Groups d…

Can a Posterous group autopost to a Facebook Group?

we don't autopost to facebook groups right now but we might add that in the future. You can also autopost to a facebook profile or page

Re: Launching Posterous Groups: Smart email lists made easy

#37

Post by Groxx »

radicaldreamer wrote: post #25
Splines wrote: post #22

Two questions: - Can groups be members of other groups? - In gmail when I click "reply" to a mail sent to the group, it just goes back to the sender (there is a "Reply To" visible in the mail, but gmail isn't using it for some reason). Otherwise, neat stuff. Not everybody in my family is on Facebook, and others in the family are leery of using FB because of privacy issues (unintentional information sharing between fr…

1. Absolutely, you can be a part of any combination of public and private groups that you like. 2. It should go to a custom email address and will function as a reply to the post. The sender's name is the author of post or reply in that notification.

I think you read 1 inside-out. The question was basically if groups can be nested inside groups.
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