In between the realm of full-featured blogs (e.g. Wordpress, Typepad) and the microblog (e.g. Twitter), there is the dead-simple blog platform Posterous. It has won the hearts and minds of many users with its bookmarklet, its easy photo sharing features, and of course, its ability to create blog posts via email.

While these features have been winners, Posterous has lacked one major feature that larger competitors such as Tumblr offer: custom themes. Ever the Posterous blog has had the same yellow-and-white layout. The lack of this much-requested feature has likely turned some potential users away.

Well guess what? Posterous now has custom themes. And it isn’t just installing a template – you can adjust the colors, the header images, and even make your own themes via HTML and CSS.

Posterous Theming

Let’s explore Posterous theming for a moment. The company actually provides a useful theming overview on its blog. Here is the gist of how to theme:

The five themes essentially are five different page layouts, affecting where your bio, sidebar, title, and other information are placed. Color editing is simple as well; if you don’t know the hexadecimal code for your color, you can just use the dropdown color picker. And finally, if you’re a true designer (like me), you can go all out and create a beautiful, custom layout for your Posterous.

I actually tested out theming on my Posterous and in just a few minutes I had a new layout set up:

I didn’t have time to dabble in a full CSS/HTML overhaul, but it seems simple enough for any experienced designer. The final kicker is that Posterous themes are Tumblr friendly – you can just drag and drop your Tumblr theme into Posterous and it’ll work reasonably well. This is a savvy move that drops the switching cost for current Tumblr users.

Posterous finally has a long-overdue feature that could be a flash point for more widespread adoption of the platform.

Also See: HOW TO: Get the Most Out of Posterous

Tags: blogging, microblogging, posterous, tumblr