You can sign up today for $5 and you won't be billed again until they're out of beta. I felt it was worth doing because I support their vision and I'm keen to see how it develops, even though the actual product is very bare bones at the moment. (e.g. No template editing, no pages, can't save posts as drafts.)
What they have so far seems fast, clean, and easy to use, though. The environment is refreshing compared to WordPress and more suited to medium-to-longform writing than tumblr.
My advice to the creators: show actual mockups of what you're hoping to build. (e.g. http://john.onolan.org/ghost/ )
Promising never to sell out is great, but I would much rather see a visual pledge in the form of, "This is what we plan to make [screenshots] and this is the order we're building those features." Even if you don't offer a definitive schedule, at least your beta backers will feel more invested in the journey you're on.
Hey, someone explain to me what happened here... seems like twitter bought Posterous to shut it down, and the founders took the money and basically started the same product with a new name and a pay model.
I left Posterous over a year before the acquisition due to a difference in opinion over strategy. Brett had also left before. I didn't agree with where my cofounder wanted to go with it. I was bummed to see it didn't work out as we had hoped when it was acq-hired. I use Posterous a ton, and I needed a replacement anyway. Thus, Posthaven. I've been working at YC since 2011, actually.
Posthaven has made a promise to users that they won't sell (and given that Garry is behind it, I don't think that's a promise made lightly). It's built for people who are tired of seeing their content eventually become dead links.
Instead of offering it free they have a sustainable business model @ $5/mo, so they won't be beholden to finding a big exit or raising a ton of cash.
That's how I understand it. The founders get acquisition money and get to keep the (slightly different) product and users. How often does a deal like that come along?
Advice to startups: list your price at its yearly rate, not monthly. I see the words "per month" and I think yet another thing sipping on my bank account every month. It's silly but it's easier to accept that I'm dishing out money for something that I won't have to think about again until a year.
I'm starting to get that same feeling but for most people paying monthly is much more affordable. Advertising the yearly price more prominently than the monthly one might turn people off.
So I've used Livejournal, Dreamwidth, Tumblr, and Posterous before, maybe a few other blogging services. LJ has disintegrated due to $xyz politics, Dreamwidth is pretty awesome but very small, Tumblr is looking for $$$, and Posterous is, well, you know.
So I regret to say that I do not look forward to using Posthaven. I instead plan to write my own content system that is git & markdown driven that renders out to my own site, paid for by me. You see, I do not trust content hosting anymore without significant reason to believe they won't drop me into a hole because $business-reason. Perhaps if Posthaven is still a going concern in 5 years and fully self-owned/IPO'd, then I will consider it a reasonable place to put time into. I guess I've just gotten burnt and my crispyness is starting to show.
I do wish you the best of luck, and I hope that Posthaven is a long-term stable business.
I love the concept of Posthaven because it says that a huge exit doesn't have to be the end game for every startup.
They've made a promise to their users to live by a sustainable business model instead of shooting the moon. Writing should be permanent, but the model of startups is one that favors the temporary. This seems like a logical next step.
I've decided that any content I produce in the future will be completely under my control, and in this context I've been very pleased with the Octopress/Jekyll setup I installed for the Rails Tutorial news feed (http://news.railstutorial.org/) once the Posterous shutdown date was announced. That said, I'm really happy that Garry and Brett have made Posthaven, and I'm excited to see them come so far so fast.
Anyone who complains about how they can't trust the Posthaven team because Posterous was shut down has to put $10 into the 'poor reading comprehension' pool.
If you read their pledge you will find the answer:
"What happens if I stop paying?
Permanent URLs are a powerful idea, and it's a feature of using Posthaven we think you should get even if you stop paying. We'll keep the site online, but you won't be able to edit content or add to it. If you want to renew, start paying again and your account will be restored.
When will something qualify for permanent storage? Let's keep it simple initially: If you pay for a year's worth of service, your content is safe and we'll keep it online."
Just signed up. My thoughts: Looks pretty slick. My hat's off to you guys. I like that you already have custom domains option available, some services charge extra for that (i.e. Wordpress).
I realize you're still in beta, but I'd like to make a feature request: the ability to email posts to my blog and have them autoposted.
I moved my blogs over the Posthaven and I have to say the import worked quite nicely.
Still waiting on custom styling before switching the domains over though. Hope that happens before April 30th. Also hope they do a better job of Markdown than Posterous.
Google Reader is a social service that was free. Google is a company that makes a lot of money, just not on that thing. The product was added to a "projects to cut" list in an email by a Google executive, and the next day it was axed.
Twitter bought Posterous for the talented team. A year later, the service is axed.
This is why things like Newsblur or Posthaven should exist for certain types of socially valuable purposes -- it's a paid service that won't go away. Because, well, money.
Disagree. This is something you should have to pay for, especially given their promise to keep your stuff online forever. Paying makes the business model clear; a free plan starts to muddy the waters and certainly is no benefit to paying users or the company.
There are plenty of places to post for free if you don't care about keeping your stuff around forever. You get what you pay for after all.
A nice thing about not having a free plan is you don't have to deal with cheap free users. Someone who's paying you $60/year is invested in the service and wants to see it succeed.
[+] [-] modernerd|13 years ago|reply
http://d.pr/i/189H
You can sign up today for $5 and you won't be billed again until they're out of beta. I felt it was worth doing because I support their vision and I'm keen to see how it develops, even though the actual product is very bare bones at the moment. (e.g. No template editing, no pages, can't save posts as drafts.)
What they have so far seems fast, clean, and easy to use, though. The environment is refreshing compared to WordPress and more suited to medium-to-longform writing than tumblr.
My advice to the creators: show actual mockups of what you're hoping to build. (e.g. http://john.onolan.org/ghost/ )
Promising never to sell out is great, but I would much rather see a visual pledge in the form of, "This is what we plan to make [screenshots] and this is the order we're building those features." Even if you don't offer a definitive schedule, at least your beta backers will feel more invested in the journey you're on.
[+] [-] garry|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] apalmer|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] garry|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wiwillia|13 years ago|reply
Instead of offering it free they have a sustainable business model @ $5/mo, so they won't be beholden to finding a big exit or raising a ton of cash.
[+] [-] qeorge|13 years ago|reply
Andy Rubin has done this successfully as well (Danger, MSFT, Android).
[+] [-] kmfrk|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|13 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] soofaloofa|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MatthewPhillips|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] untog|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] k-mcgrady|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pnathan|13 years ago|reply
So I've used Livejournal, Dreamwidth, Tumblr, and Posterous before, maybe a few other blogging services. LJ has disintegrated due to $xyz politics, Dreamwidth is pretty awesome but very small, Tumblr is looking for $$$, and Posterous is, well, you know.
So I regret to say that I do not look forward to using Posthaven. I instead plan to write my own content system that is git & markdown driven that renders out to my own site, paid for by me. You see, I do not trust content hosting anymore without significant reason to believe they won't drop me into a hole because $business-reason. Perhaps if Posthaven is still a going concern in 5 years and fully self-owned/IPO'd, then I will consider it a reasonable place to put time into. I guess I've just gotten burnt and my crispyness is starting to show.
I do wish you the best of luck, and I hope that Posthaven is a long-term stable business.
Regards, Paul
[+] [-] wiwillia|13 years ago|reply
They've made a promise to their users to live by a sustainable business model instead of shooting the moon. Writing should be permanent, but the model of startups is one that favors the temporary. This seems like a logical next step.
[+] [-] mhartl|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ispivey|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dude_abides|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] garry|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] blacktulip|13 years ago|reply
"What happens if I stop paying?
Permanent URLs are a powerful idea, and it's a feature of using Posthaven we think you should get even if you stop paying. We'll keep the site online, but you won't be able to edit content or add to it. If you want to renew, start paying again and your account will be restored.
When will something qualify for permanent storage? Let's keep it simple initially: If you pay for a year's worth of service, your content is safe and we'll keep it online."
[+] [-] JustARandomGuy|13 years ago|reply
I realize you're still in beta, but I'd like to make a feature request: the ability to email posts to my blog and have them autoposted.
[+] [-] nicpottier|13 years ago|reply
Still waiting on custom styling before switching the domains over though. Hope that happens before April 30th. Also hope they do a better job of Markdown than Posterous.
[+] [-] webwanderings|13 years ago|reply
> Its creators are also inspired by Google Reader’s recent demise
What does a demise of a Google product has to do with another totally different product by a different company?
[+] [-] garry|13 years ago|reply
Twitter bought Posterous for the talented team. A year later, the service is axed.
This is why things like Newsblur or Posthaven should exist for certain types of socially valuable purposes -- it's a paid service that won't go away. Because, well, money.
[+] [-] sherjilozair|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] masnick|13 years ago|reply
There are plenty of places to post for free if you don't care about keeping your stuff around forever. You get what you pay for after all.
[+] [-] 100k|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sherjilozair|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] whather|13 years ago|reply