Happy Labor Day!
August 30, 2008
Just a reminder to those of you outside the US (or those in the US who don’t work for the federal government), Labor Day is on Monday (September 1). As this is a US postal holiday, all weekend orders will go out on Tuesday instead.
Enjoy the BBQs (or whatever else you have planned)!
Print Scales Up
August 29, 2008
While I’m sad to say that this isn’t one of the new features we will be announcing next week, it’s still a cool extension of print concepts.
Expanding 3D printing technologies (often used for rapid prototyping) from plastics to concrete, a USC group in conjunction with Caterpillar is testing a system to ‘print’ homes. Once available, it should be able to print out a full house in hours.
Postful at Office 2.0
August 26, 2008
We’ve been working on some major updates recently, and we’re excited to say that we’ll be announcing them in just a little over a week at the Office 2.0 conference.
Aside from the obvious draw that Postful provides, there is an incredible group of panelists and speakers lined up. More, there are going to be a lot of people that we’re looking forward to meeting in person after long online interactions.
There are still some spots remaining, so if you have a chance, register now. Ismael Ghalimi and his team are putting together what looks to be a wonderful program, but it’s always the community that defines any conference, so we’d love to see as many of you there as possible.
For those who can’t make it, we’ll be posting updates here as well.
New Feature: Ignore Email Bodies
August 2, 2008
Many of you are sending your letters using PDFs or Word docs in order to gain better control over design, fonts and layout. But since the default has been to also print the body of the email, if present, this has led to some problems. Free email accounts add advertising. Many businesses and law firms have required notices which are appended. While we’ve worked to filter these out, this is not always successful.
To make this easier, we now offer the option to simply ignore all email message bodies. This means that only attachments will be printed. You can access this feature by going to your account preferences page. Just select the “ignore email bodies” option.
The Other Half of Mail
July 24, 2008
Being able to send letters from your computer is great. But you still have to go down to your mailbox and pick up your incoming mail. Thankfully, there are several services willing to take care of that for you.
Earth Class Mail allows you to set up a mailing address at one of their facilities and direct your incoming mail there. They scan the mail and provide it to you online. If you need the actual letter, they handle forwarding that on to you. It really seems that this is something the USPS should do (and working with national postal systems is part of Earth Class Mail’s model).
Pixily is a new entrant. Rather than automatically handling your mail, they have you collect your documents and then re-mail them to their center. If you still want to receive your mail directly but would like to have someone else handle document scanning (for bills or other pieces you want saved), this is a great option. There are similar services like Shoeboxed which focus on receipts (as I glance nervously at the wad on receipts on the floor next to me).
Paper documents and mail still have a place, but for many of us, that place should be far away from our desks and offices. Postful lets you handle the outgoing side. These services let you handle the incoming. It’s a combination which allows you to stay connected across all formats while working in the way that’s best for you.
Downtime [UPDATED: 5:15 PDT]
July 20, 2008
Like many websites that utilize Amazon’s storage services, we’re experiencing some technical difficulties. Amazon is working on the problems and we expect a resolution soon.
In the meantime, the key thing to note is that none of your letters are lost. They are held and will be processed as soon as Amazon’s services are back online. Our system is designed to avoid losing messages in the event that even large portions of our service go down (no failover system is perfect, but this has been a high priority for us).
We’ll update here as soon as the situation changes.
UPDATE: Things seem to be back online. We’ll be monitoring closely to make sure this is a stable fix.
Ballmer’s Wrong, Print is Already Dead
June 6, 2008
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer predicted today that print will be dead in ten years.
There will be no media consumption left in ten years that is not delivered over an IP network. There will be no newspapers, no magazines that are delivered in paper form. Everything gets delivered in an electronic form.
Ballmer is off by at least ten years since at least the first part of this is true today. Whether the final output is screen or paper, there is no significant media left that isn’t “delivered over an IP network”. Print as a fundamental distribution medium is already dead.
Information is produced in whatever format is most convenient to the producer, moved into a digital network (open or closed), and output in whatever format is most useful to the consumer. But the final output is far less important than the intermediate phases of aggregation and distribution which are already entirely digital.
On the other hand, print as an output format is not going to be gone in ten years. Some people prefer print. Some situations make print a better solution. Sometimes print is just fun (candles are still sold, after all). As long as any of those are true, some media will still be delivered to consumers in print.
But all of that information and media will pass through digital networks before delivery. It already does. Companies that are looking for opportunities in the death of print have missed the point that as the fundamental distribution medium, it’s already dead. The change isn’t coming 10 years from now, or five, or even tomorrow. It’s already here.
Newspapers or magazines will continue their decline. Print as a whole will become less common even for output. But the details of that rate of change are incidental to the fundamental change has already taken place. Any company waiting ten years for this has already missed the point.
API Videos
June 4, 2008
Eric Lee of CounterPunch Software has posted some great videos on using the Postful API. Definitely worth checking out!
Web Integrated… Shirts?
June 4, 2008
As you know, here at Postful we’re big on digital/physical integration. ReadWriteWeb has an interesting article on Nota’s offering of what they call C-Shirts. These are shirts with scannable codes allowing anyone to view, edit, and order a copy if they see someone wearing a shirt that they like.
The key to this is the ubiquity of QR (Quick Response) codes in Japan. Nearly all Japanese cell-phones are built to read these. Posters have them as links to more information, ads have them, even vending machines and, now, clothes have them.
In the US, various barcode formats and systems have tried to replicate this. In print, there have been efforts to create both custom readers (CueCat) and proprietary barcode standards.
The alternative has simply been to include a raw url. Lately, print vendors have been pushing PURLs (personal urls), mainly for use in direct mail. But the difference between briefly pointing your phone at an ad and copying down a url for later entry is huge. Looking at the Japanese mobile market, you see the difference that an established, consistent format makes.
But whether through QR, RFID, or some other technology, we can expect to see this trend continue to mature in Japan and expand elsewhere. In print (whether on paper or on clothing) the capability is already here. For other physical products, it won’t be long. For all of us, it will be another step to bringing together our physical and digital spaces.
