Are you wondering how you are going to share photos and movies with family and friends when MobileMe is shut down and replaced with iCloud? You won’t be able to use iCloud with your MobileMe gallery. Here’s a great and free solution called Posterous.
What is Posterous?
In June 2011 Steve Jobs announced iCloud as a replacement for MobileMe. iCloud has some great features, but one of the missing features that iCloud won’t be taking with it from MobileMe is the online gallery. You will not longer be able to post movies and photos from your computer to your MobileMe gallery to easily share with others. Sure, you still have until June 2012 before MobileMe and the gallery is totally shut down, but I didn’t want to wait that long to find a solution. In my search for a MobileMe replacement I found a great service called Posterous. Posterous is very easy to use, and best of all it is FREE! I also have yet to see any ads on the site, which is even better.
So what is Posterous? Think of it as a blog for your videos and photos. In fact, that is exactly what it is. The page you get is updated in blog format and viewers will have access to all the content from older posts. You easily post content to your Posterous site or sites and (depending on settings that I will discuss later) it is quickly shared to your friends and family. You can have a private site or a public site.
How Does Posterous Work?
To use Posterous you need to sign up for a free account at www.posterous.com . Once you go through the setup process you are assigned a main gallery page for your account. You can also set up other pages as needed. Your page will be assigned a URL and an email address. The URL will be in the format of pagename.posterous.com. The email address will be pagename(or username)@posterous.com.
When you are ready to post to the page you can post by uploading to the website from within your account or you can email the content right to your page. That’s right, I said email. This is my favorite part about Posterous. The email address I mentioned above is not for you to correspond with others. It is for posting to your site. So, for example, if you are on an iPhone and you just too video or photos that you want to immediately share with your family you don’t have to wait until you get that content onto a computer for uploading. You simply email that photos or video to your Posterous email address and it will be automatically posted to your site! Fantastic!
Here’s my second favorite feature. People can subscribe to your gallery page and whenever you post something new to the page they get an email from Posterous notifying them there is new content. You don’t have to do anything but post the content. Through your settings you can control those who are and are not allowed to subscribe to your page.
Two Type of Galleries
There are two types of galleries you can have on Posterous.
The first is a “regular” gallery that anyone can see. You can password protect a gallery, but anyone with that password can get into the page. You don’t have to be a Posterous member to see a page, you just have to know the URL and (if protected) the password.
The second type of gallery involves a group. The group is even more private. Only those you invite or list as being allowed to see the page can get in. If you do not add the person to your group they cannot see the page. Even if a person has the URL for this gallery they cannot gain access without being on your list.
Even More Posterous Features
In the sections above I mentioned the basic features of Posterous. Here are a few more features.
First, if you have them enabled, you can have visitors post comments (just like a regular blog) to your posts. You can even just post text instead of videos or photos. Of course, all of this is under your control and moderation. If someone posts a comment you don’t like, delete it.
Second, you can allow other people to post on the site too. Let’s say you have a gallery from a family reunion and other relatives want to share photos and video. Just give them the specific Posterous email address and add their email address to the allowed to post list. Now they can share their photos and videos on the same site as you.
Another nice feature is you can put any number of themes on your blog to personalize it even more. The theme is like a skin and gives your blog the look and feel that is right for you. If you know coding you can customize the page even more.
Finally, and I think this has to be third on my list of favorite features, there is an iPhone app. The app is free and lets you see and post to all of your pages and groups from right within the app. You can post video and photos right off your iPhone by the email method I mentioned above or by using the app.
More to Come?
With MobileMe Galleries becoming extinct within the year I am confident there will be more and more sites popping up to grab the current MobileMe users who depend on the gallery feature. Will they be as good and easy to use as Posterous? That remains to be seen, but until that happens Posterous is the replacement for me.
References
• Article based on writers experience.
• Screenshots by the writer.
