Postcards can be found at nearly every tourist destination around the world. And while they’re always a popular and cheap way to keep in touch with friends, they also suffer from being incredibly generic – every shop seems to sell the same dozen postcards, no matter where in a city you go.
A new startup called Hazel Mail is looking to give postcards a more personal touch, by helping users design and send custom cards. The process is simple: after uploading an image to the site, users add a brief message and the recipient’s address. Hazelmail then prints and ships the card from one of its globally distributed printers.
The site’s closest competitor is HippoPost, a similar custom-postcard startup that launched last June. HippoPost allows users to send two free custom postcards per day, which are supported by user-selected advertising printed on the text portion of the post card.
In contrast, Hazel Mail forgoes ads and charges a flat rate of $1.50 for all postcards, regardless of their destination. And unlike Hippopost, which is only available in the United States and Canada, Hazel Mail claims worldwide distribution, with partner printers in North American, South America, Europe, and Asia.
Hazel Mail’s biggest challenge will lie in convincing people to send custom postcards in the first place. Traditional postcards are appealing because they’re convenient – they let you show your friends where you’re traveling, without the hassle of having to print your own photos. To do the same with Hazelmail, you’d need to find a computer cafe (which can be very expensive) and upload your own pictures from a public computer.
That said, if Hazelmail launches a mobile application on the iPhone (or any other camera phone), it could really take off. The prospect of being able to snap a photo at the top of the Eiffel Tower, upload it, and send it as a postcard to all of my friends is very appealing. Of course, you could always email the image, but it’s nice to have something tangible to stick on the refrigerator.
I do not think as very original idea but there will be someone who paid for
You should be banned from the internet for life.
*I* would simply LOVE to meet you spammers face-to-face!
Agreed. TC should just remove URL links from comments here. It would improve comment quality instantly.
Each of the aforementioned businesses are very similar to Cardstore.com (http://www.cardstore.com), a site that has been around since the early dotcom days. Only difference is pricing structure.
Right, like pricing structure doesn’t matter. WTF?
There is also:
1) Ease of use
2) branding on the card (which cardstore seems to be tied to)
Great idea! I’d love to use these for “staying in touch” or “thank you” cards. Very cool, indeed.
The possibilities are endless.
Leslie
Have a look at the iPhone app “FUJIdirekt”. It let’s you do exactly same, but from the convenience of your iPhone!
Postful launched a similar service at the Office 2.0 conference a couple of weeks ago. Although we only mail postcards to the US only for the moment (we do send letters globally), our pricing is quite a bit better at $.59/card.
I wanted to add that we also have an API for building this capability directly into other applications.
And sorry for the typo above…
An API is very very necessary, but I’ve never heard of you all before. I think the API (eg B2B play) is a perfect differentiator, you just need to get deals done.
Iterate often and early!
One question: When using the API, is it possible to remove all Postful’s branding and/ or replace it?
Sean,
We don’t add any branding at all. We found that neither individuals nor businesses wanted to send an ad for the company doing their mailing.
That’s good to know Justin. Looks like you all have a great thing going (and I hate most startups
)
You may want to remove anything from your FAQs that are not FAQs
Half the fun in getting a postcard is getting the foreign stamps. They will print and mail these from a US location if you send them from elsewhere to the US. They’ll have bulk rate metered postage printed on them. If you’re on-line send an email, why bother with a fake postcard.
Isn’t part of the joy of receiving a postcard the stamp and cancellation — knowing that it was actually delivered from some foreign land?
It seems like a cool service, but if it’s going to be printed and mailed from a service center nearest to the recipient, then why not just deliver it electronically?
Answering my own question: because we don’t yet have electronic displays that you attach to the refrigerator with magnets.
You know they say, “It is the thought that counts” and it seems more and more that the only thought is required (no real effort anymore).
actually we do, it’s called a CEIVA FRAME. http://www.ceiva.com/
amazingmail
I’ve been using it for years.
This is cool.
I can send photo’s to my mom…
I am so lazy when it comes to mailing anything.
Nice site, and it may appeal to folks sending christmas cards or party invitations, but it doesn’t seem to connect with the usual postcard-sending audience of tourists. Wait about 50 years though and maybe you’ll see some of these on cardcow as nostalgic collectibles from the early 21st century.
why not send an audio at http://postcard.fm ? it’s totally free and totally customizable.
I think it’s a cool idea, as long as it’s international. Sending postcards from abroad is a required, annoying tradition, since it’s SO hard to figure out postage and figure out where to send things from. Would be so sweet to do it from a internet cafe.
HOWEVER, half the fun of stupid postcards are that the recipient gets the stamp from the foreign country…am I going to send you something from ‘athens’ but it’s going to have a US stamp sent from San Francisco on it?
Interesting idea… why not. I would also like to pick the random “cool” stamp to put on the postcard, is that OK?
Closest competitor, huh. Nice research, TechCrunch.
Amazingmail.com has been around for years; I’ve used it since 2003 at least. They look more B2B now, but the consumer options are still there. Great fun to be able to send custom postcards.
Amazingmail seemed super-complicated to me when it comes to usability. I would not say that Hazel Mail has the cleanest interface I’ve ever seen, but I definitely did not need half of the screens and the forms Amazingmail made me fill before I could come any close to finally sending that card.
AmazingMail is still in the consumer space. But, as you can see by this thread, the consumer space is challenging..
However, AmazingMail will be making a big push back into the consumer space, with a mobile application, due to launch before the upcoming holidays. And, you will be able to send a card from anywhere in the world you have a connection, to anywhere in the world mail is delivered.
Great idea. Takes out the cost of actually buying, filling out and then mailing the post cards. I’d pay for this service.
Wanted to try it 5 minutes ago to send a card to my gf in Norway (I live in Germany). Since they didn’t write anywhere on the page on how I can pay for the card and sending an e-mail to them gets me a “Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently” I gave up on it.
Ok, nowhere is of course wrong, it is somewhere hidden in the terms of use. I want to use paypal though and not yet another membership here and there
that is very good service, as long as they use USPS – United state postal service or they will loose mail
Mr Kincaid, why the inconsistency?
First you declare the death of business card by means of shaking an iPhone or some other elaborate action and now you are in love with this dead-tree carbon emitting air-miles business.
Deadpool in a few months.
Look, I am an insider to this web2print game. I’ve seen about a dozen of people trying really hard to get something like this off the ground. With ads, without ads, with corporate support, without corporate support. They just didn’t get any hits no matter how big the button was and even on really high trafficked sites.
PEOPLE DO NOT WANT TO SEND POSTCARDS FROM A COMPUTER.
2 exceptions:
- a card is sent in anger (campaigning)
- it’s them on the card and they have no other means of obtaining the image
So, why did you pick these kids?
They ain’t the first, they ain’t the best, they ain’t any more different than 100 others before them.
When you travel there are minutes when you hang around the town with nothing to do, nowhere to go. You buy a bunch of cards, sit down at a cafe and fill the time writing messages and licking stamps. This is how people do it offline.
If they go to an iNet cafe they just email the photos.
One chap put ads right on monitors in downtown iNet cafes and hostels in Melb, AU and still wasn’t getting orders. Tells you something, doesn’t it?
There are a lot of people doing this kind of service, whether geared toward consumers or B2B. It’s a tough sell. In some ways, I wonder if the world just isn’t ready for it yet. Sending postcards while traveling might take longer to transition to the digital age, if it ever does at all.
I think this is a good simple idea. Its always good to have a choice and for some of us who are artistic its a good chance to impress.
why is 20 words too much? (thats the error message i just got)
neat idea..nice layout and very convenient, especially when you dont feel like going out, finding a generic postcard and mailing it from an international location (yeah, im lazy like that)
This site is cool, however I found a better one…www.getposted.com!! It allows you to put a message on the front, which the other guys don’t let you do. Check that one out!! http://www.getposted.com
This one would not work with Cyrillic. Which is important for me since most of my recipients speak Russian.