Conversations, Not Desktops
June 4, 2008
For the last few decades, the “desktop” metaphor has dominated computing. We treat information like paper documents, software as pencils, pens, staplers, all designed to fit a single human hand. That metaphor is eroding as we move towards web-based systems. While no new metaphor has yet replaced the desktop, the best candidates seem clustered around the concept of conversations.
This change is obvious in much of the online world. It’s a cliché to refer to blogs as conversations. Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, and others are really only definable in terms of these new metaphors (what precisely would constitute a Facebook document or a Twitter desktop?).
Even the humble word processing document is adjusting to these new concepts. With online office suites, multiple users can work at the same time, link data into dynamic sources, and connect to external tools and outputs. Its no longer about the pile of papers (which may be odd coming from a company which produces precisely that).
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Digital Print is 1/3 of the Way There
May 31, 2008
Digital print technology is rapidly maturing. While drupa continues to demonstrate the huge range of existing print methods and technologies (and cool new ones), calling this the digital drupa is not an exaggeration.
Which makes it important to look at the three pieces needed for this transition to truly take hold.
- Digital presses and finishing equipment
- Software and processing
- Integration with digital information and sources
While the first (presses and equipment) is maturing, the other two have a long ways to go.
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Print Market Size
May 30, 2008
We’re still occasionally asked why get into print. Isn’t it a dead market?
Right now drupa is taking place (the world’s largest print conference, held once every four years). We’ll be talking more about some of the very cool innovations on display there later. But for now, let me just pass along one number provided by our friends at HP. They estimate that, in 2010, the value of printed pages in the global graphic arts market will be $663 billion.
Now, even if you think (as we do) that the total print market is destined to decline, the portion of the total originated through the web continues to grow at triple digit rates. With a total market of that size, a decline is simply an opportunity for firms ready to take advantage of the transformation.
Downtime Tonight
May 23, 2008
Postful will be briefly down tonight for a server upgrade. This is scheduled to begin on Saturday, May 24 at 0000 PDT (0700 GMT). We’re allocating 3 hours for this, although we expect it take far less than that.
[Update 5/24/08] We’re back up and everything is running smoothly again.
Postal Rates Increase, Postful’s Prices Don’t
May 13, 2008
If you had to mail a letter today, you were probably hunting around for $.01 stamps or, worse, waiting in line at the post office to buy some. But if you’re a Postful user, you just sent your letters the same way you did last week.
More, you paid the same price as you did last week. That’s because we chose to keep our prices the same in spite of the increase in postal rates. It’s just one more way we try to make things easy for you (and hold the line against the inflationary pressures of US monetary and fiscal policies).
Coming Soon from Postful
March 17, 2008
We’ve been somewhat quiet about new features lately (somewhat quiet, period). That will be changing over the next few months. Keep watching for some exciting announcements as we come up on the one year anniversary of our beta launch…
Mail Volume Declines: Good for Postful
February 1, 2008
The USPS recently announced that mail volume was down 3 percent in the first fiscal quarter of ’08. This is great news for us.
First, let’s look at the details. This was a decline of 1.7 billion pieces for the quarter, largely attributable to declines in mortgage and financial services mailings.
Now, why do we think this is such a good thing? The answer is that the pressures of decline opens more room for competition and new ideas.
It’s common wisdom that you want to be in a growth market because growth exposes opportunity. The unlikely corollary is that being in a contracting market opens up just as many opportunities, as long as the market is large enough to support the decline. Print and mail are gigantic markets which can easily absorb decades of continued contraction (as they will have to).
But this is good for these industries. Competition in the print world has focused increasingly on price rather than innovation. Contraction makes that strategy dangerous and generally leads to a dramatic contraction in the total number of firms.
Given that, firms are forced to look for new ways to compete. Faced with change or extinction, many firms will stumble towards the later. But enough will attempt innovation to break down institutional barriers. The net result is a more uncertain and fluid market for all players.
And this is just what we’re positioned to take advantage of. Postful is built on a new model for print and mail focused on integration with digital tools and information. This is perhaps the most important growth area within this overall declining market.
All of this puts us in a great position to take advantage of the dynamics of change and build out a strong position to expand from here. It should be interesting to see how the rest of the market responds.
Print Vendor and Supplier Consolidation
January 23, 2008
While the total print market is still growing, the number of print shops continues to fall. Quebecor World is the first major player to collapse, but this is affecting all firms, from local shops to international giants.
It was inevitable that, in this climate, print hardware and software providers would need to consolidate as well. There simply aren’t enough purchasers to support an ecosystem of this size and complexity. HP’s purchase of Exstream Software is the latest step in this process.
This follows a series of related moves over recent years. Most similar is Xerox’s acquisition of XMPie in 2006. Owning their own VDP software suites allows major print and digital press vendors to offer a turn-key solution, rather than just a piece of hardware.
As complexity rises and the number of big buyers declines, this is critical. There simply aren’t the resources available to customize each installation. The short-term implementation costs and long-term support costs make this unworkable for all but the largest players (who don’t buy enough to make it work for the vendors).
Craig Le Clair has pointed out that document output management is becoming an increasingly major software category. I think that the ability to combine software and hardware into a single solution for clients is the real solution for this space. HP’s purchase makes particular sense in that context.
Of course, this leaves the huge segment of the market that can’t spend a million dollars or more on internal print capacity (or simply don’t want to). This is the area where Postful and other web-to-print vendors are rapidly expanding. The ability to standardize on a digital workflow and simply plug in print as one output option is a huge advantage for businesses.
These two trends will be highlighted over the next few years. The largest firms will increasingly rely on drop-in hardware and software solutions provided by single vendors. Meanwhile small and medium sized firms will handle their print needs through internet-based fulfillment services. Whether managed through internal or external appliances, print will be a service.
Hardware for Cloud Computing
January 21, 2008
The general push at CES combined with Apple’s introduction of the MacBook Air has moved cloud computing back into the spotlight. Steve Rubel points out:
As we become more dependent on technology, people crave small and thin computers and mobile devices. They want to travel light, yet still remain as productive as they can at home or work with a desktop. This will require that manufacturers rely more on “the cloud” (e.g. the Internet) and local area networks, rather than on-board hardware to do more of the work – at least for now.
What’s true for the internals of computers and devices is doubly so for the hardware with which we surround them. Very few people want to carry a printer with them on the go. In fact, few even want one at all.
Postful takes the printer off your desktop and moves it into the cloud. Regardless of what device you’re working from, what files are on that local machine, or even where you are, you have access to a high-end printing and delivery service.
As we increasingly treat the network as the foundation of our computing experience, hardware and physical processes must become an integral part of the cloud. Those tools can no longer be represented by physical devices that are tied to our presence in a particular location. They have to be accessible, integrated, and connected.
Our focus at Postful has been on bringing printing into this world of services. This is just one piece of the puzzle, but we think it demonstrates the potential, viability, and even necessity of this strategy.
Alternate Outputs
January 18, 2008
Chris Anderson has been compiling a growing list of media business models. Included is “Alternate output (pdf; print/print-on-demand; customized Shared Book style; etc.)”.
Obviously this model is near and dear to our hearts [does that phrase refer to the lungs?]. Postful makes it easy for sites to add in a print and delivery system for their online content.
But it’s not just about providing a monetization mechanism, it’s about expanding your audience. There are still billions of people worldwide who aren’t online much or at all (including over 100 million people in the US alone). Providing a mechanism for reaching those people is not just a way to earn an extra buck, it’s a way to establish your brand for the next wave of internet expansion.
More, it’s a way to allow your users to interact with your content as they prefer. The expansion of choice is one of the fundamental strands in the modern web. It’s becoming one of the minimal standards to be considered credible and useful (the convergence of those terms in an information economy is perhaps a topic for another post).
Keep letting us know how you’re using us to better serve your patrons (and earn money for yourself in the process)!
