Posterous is updating its iPhone and Android apps today with support for a new creation called Spaces. In a nutshell, it’s exactly like Circles in Google+. Essentially, you can group all of your friends and family on Posterous into different groups (or “spaces”) so you can control who sees specific content you post. Now you might already be bored with this news because it seems like privacy is anyone is talking about nowadays, but Posterous has a unique marketing strategy behind Spaces.
Posterous made a valid point that Google+ or anyone else ever bothered to make. In real life, we keep secrets from people all the time. We share them with friends or family we trust and avoid the big-mouths as much as possible. For a long time on the Internet, we have been unable to do this. Everything posted was visible to any friends. If you weren’t okay with that fact, tough luck. In a way, Posterous is saying we are finally allowed to keep secrets online. That’s what Spaces is all about.
“I think I’ll share those baby photos with my family, but not my friends. As for that photo of the party last night, well what my family doesn’t know won’t hurt them.” Posterous is embracing this entire concept.
It’s a great idea, but not everyone had a problem with the original all-or-nothing flow of social networking. Breathe a sigh of relief, folks. Posterous understands and has you covered:
“We know a lot of you were perfectly happy with Posterous and wouldn’t want us to change a thing. Rest assured, with Posterous Spaces you can keep doing everything you’ve been doing with yesterday’s service. Plus we’ve added many cool new features to enjoy, including five new professionally-designed themes, a beautiful new reading experience, 3x faster loading times, slick new profile pages and more.”
Posterous.com, the iPhone app, and Android app all include support for Spaces.