Between the blog, books, speaking events, art exhibitions and a host of social networking sites, readers might believe PostSecret has all its bases covered.
But a new portal has opened in the anonymous community.
With the release of an iPhone app, secret-readers and writers have a new platform for sharing the funny thoughts, dark confessions and sexual fantasies that have given the PostSecret website more than 470 million hits.
At $1.99, the PostSecret app has become the No. 1 best selling app in America and Canada, with more than 200,000 secrets created and shared.
Frank Warren, curator and founder of PostSecret, said they decided to charge money for the app to avoid advertisements and to increase user value.
“Keeping the blog was free, but creating an app costs tens of thousands of dollars,” Warren said. “We wanted people who use the app to feel like they’re invested in it, and we were afraid with a free app people would use it once or twice and then discard it.”
The app also includes the International Suicide Prevention Wiki, a comprehensive and current listing of suicide prevention hotlines and chat-lines. The ISP Wiki is available free to individuals and organizations to incorporate into other apps.
In the six years of its existence, the PostSecret community has raised more than half a million dollars for suicide prevention.
Warren said when he began the project, he was a volunteer on HopeLine, a suicide-prevention program. “I am so happy I’ve been able to lend the PostSecret name to suicide prevention,” he said. “I love seeing how we can bring these new technologies to bear on what I think is one the most critical problems of our time.”
PostSecret began in November 2004 when Warren invited people in the Washington, D.C., area to anonymously mail him a secret on a postcard.
A self-proclaimed “accidental artist,” Warren said he sometimes asks himself why people feel comfortable mailing him their secrets.
“I have no training in anything I’m doing right now, like apps and books and speaking,” he said. “I ask, ‘Why me?’ because this is the kind of project anybody could have started. I’m just asking people to mail me secrets.”
Warren said the project resulted from a fascination with secrets and a desire to initiate community art.
“I think one reason I started the project was I had this super boring job,” he said. “So never underestimate the value of a boring job. It can really push you to do creative stuff after work or on the weekends.”
With more than 500,000 secrets shared, the website has won several awards.
Warren said secret-sharing is an important part of being human, and his project just made it easier with the element of anonymity.
“We find courage to tell secrets to people we trust,” he said. “We turn parts of ourselves that we use as walls into bridges and discover the deepest part of humanity in ourselves that goes without being seen in our everyday lives.”
 
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Contact Morgan Searles at
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