With the news of Tumblr being bought just this past week, there is renewed attention to other blogging platforms. Of course WordPress and Tumblr are two of the most recognized ones out there. But there are others that you may not have heard of or that are just not as popular.
For the past few days, I have gotten to play with a blogging platform that is a little different than some of the other options that are out there. If you are an Evernote user, like I am, then you are going to be intrigued by Postach.io. It harnesses the power of Evernote and lets you use it to create your blog posts. I thought it was a brilliant idea, and after taking it for a spin for a bit, I came away impressed. Let’s take a closer look at it.
Getting Started
When you first sign up to use the app, you have to connect to your Evernote account, which means if you don’t have one, you will have to get one before you can move any further. For those who have never used Evernote, they have a free account, which works perfectly fine if you just want to see what it is like and get used to it.
After you are done, it is now time to start setting up your blog. There are two options for your url: you can have a generic Postach.io one that looks like this, NAME.postach.io. You can also have a custom url, which at the moment is free to do, but it looks like they are going to be charging for this in the future. You can also set up your Twitter, Facebook, Google +, and LinkedIn connections here by just putting in the links to these sites. Lastly, you can set up Disqus comments as well as Google Analytics.
Setting up my blog
Writing Your Blog Posts
This is where the power and ease of using Evernote comes in. When you are ready to start writing, you can switch over to whatever platform of Evernote you like to use to start writing. Postach.io recommends the web version as they have more editing features than the others, but it really doesn’t matter.
When you first connected your Postach.io account to Evernote, you had the option to create a Postach.io folder in it as well or you could assign any other folder to connect to your account. Whatever you decided on, go to that folder and to start writing your new blog post, just create a new note.
Writing my post in Evernote
As you can see from the image above, I can write in text, easily add an image, and even put in the embed code to a video from YouTube. It was really quite easy and took me a few minutes to do. When you are done writing your post, all you have to do is tag it with the word “published”, then sync it with Evernote, and it will show up on Postach.io. You can also create different pages on your site, by creating a note and tagging it with the word “page”.
What the post looks like in Postach.io
Super Easy, But……
As I started to play around with Postach.io, I found that it was very easy to add a post with images, change formats, etc. I can definitely see it being a useful app for people, but, at this point, it is just not for power bloggers. There are features that platforms like WordPress and Tumblr can offer that right now Postach.io just cannot do. For example, there are plugins and customization features that WordPress offers that Postach.io just doesn’t have right now.
If you want more features or you are not an Evernote user, then this may not appeal to you. I see this appealing to those that want a simple blog or site and don’t want to necessarily deal with the advanced features of other platforms. This could possibly be a cheaper alternative as well, being that you are only paying for your custom domain. Postach.io is currently in beta, and they are going to be introducing more features. For example, I got word that they are going to be giving users the ability to customize themes even if they don’t know how to code.
Final Thoughts
I am excited to see what is to come for Postach.io and how they will continue to grow. At the moment everything is free to use within the site. They do have a questionnaire on their site about what they should charge for using a custom domain, which if you like this app, I would suggest you give your input.
It will be interesting to see where Postach.io goes and if it gains in popularity. Unfortunately, they have two things against them at this point; they are up against very established blogging platforms and they have locked themselves into Evernote. Although I sing the praises of Evernote, not everyone uses it and will see it as a turn off. I really hope that Postach.io is able to get better and add features that will make it comparable to the likes of WordPress and Tumblr. If you are looking for a simple blogging platform, you are just getting started into blogging, and you are an Evernote user, you should definitely check out Postach.io. I think you will be pleasantly surprised with how easy it is to set up a blog and start creating something fun.