14 DAY TRIAL // With the growing popularity of the Internet after the mid 90's, postcards were mainly replaced by e-cards, which provided and still provide an easier, faster and cheaper way to send greeting cards to friends or family. However, classic post cards have their own charm, and I'm sure they will never be completely replaced by the virtual e-cards.
Because in some situations it might be difficult to send someone a postcard (buy it, go to the post office etc.), the new Wish You Were HereSM service allows users to send personalized postcards directly from their phones. We're talking about real postcards, made from any photo a user might want, photo that can be taken with any camera phone. Simply send a text message with "WYWH" to 69626, visit the WYWHSM mobile website, upload your photo, enter your message and the recipient's address and that's all - the WYWHSM service prints and mails the postcard on your behalf. So all you need is a phone that has a web browser and a camera (preferably a good one).
Launched by Stolen Bases and netomat, two US-based companies, Wish You Were HereSM currently has support from seven US carriers, including AT&T, Sprint Nextel, Virgin Mobile, CellularOne and Boost Mobile. In the near future, other important carriers will support the service. The cost for one postcard sent is $1.99 (printing and mailing to any US address included).
"We hope our new customers will have as much fun and be as engaged as our pre-release users", said Michael Angst, CEO of Stolen Bases, one of the two companies that partnered to provide the service. "We saw a wide range of uses - from the couple that sent postcards from the top of the slopes in Aspen to the user who snapped a picture of a broken traffic sign to send to his mayor."
"We are working on affiliate deals with sports teams, bands, and other event-driven organizations, where quickly sending a personalized, branded souvenir postcard provides a fun, innovative, viral mobile service that can generate additional revenues", said Kris Ramanathan, CEO of netomat, the company that provides the mobile infrastructure that powers the WYWHSM service. "Our first affiliate partner, Family Travel Forum, was pleased that we gave parents a way to manage usage. Their customers rely on them to provide family-friendly travel advice and resources, including tips for kids traveling on their own. Parents can fund, then replenish, their teens' use of the service when sending postcards from camp, concerts, college or Spring Break."
All in all, WYWHSM seems pretty cool, and it will probably expand to Europe and other markets in the future. Instead of sending your friends a simple photo as a MMS, you now have the chance to send the same photo in a cooler (and more real) way. Cowabunga indeed!
