[HN Gopher] Show HN: Text a photo to send as a postcard
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Show HN: Text a photo to send as a postcard
Author : traviswingo
Score : 112 points
Date : 2023-06-17 15:41 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (postcardbot.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (postcardbot.com)
| amelius wrote:
| Have you though about how malevolent people will abuse this? E.g.
| sending a pic from a shocksite to someone you don't like? You'd
| have to set up a content moderation department to deal with this
| sort of thing.
| themanmaran wrote:
| Can't malevolent people already pay the post office to mail
| someone a shock picture? Does the post office have a content
| moderation department?
| whiplash451 wrote:
| Except now they can do it at scale
| berbec wrote:
| yes, at $2.99 a postcard.
| whiplash451 wrote:
| Fair.
| MattGaiser wrote:
| You can do this currently with a printer and stamps for much
| cheaper.
|
| It can also be done much more anonymously.
| sinkasapa wrote:
| This is fun. I worked at a company that did something very
| similar around 2008. We had too much fun testing it out and I
| remember getting lots of ridiculous post cards in the mail from
| co-workers. I don't know that it was ever something that was
| likely to make much money, just one project among many at the
| company. Unfortunately, 2008 was a bit of a wrecking ball and we
| never got to find out. We had an iPhone app back then and my boss
| was skeptical that Android would ever really compete.
| ludwik wrote:
| Nice idea, but the fact that it requires sending to a US-specific
| phone number makes it unusable for most of the world.
|
| For me, the ideal implementation of this would be a simple app to
| which you could send the photo using the "share" functionality
| built into iOS/Android.
| prepend wrote:
| The US is a big market. And is the most likely country that
| people will be able to send to. So it's a great place to start.
|
| I use voip accounts and have been able to send to international
| numbers for years.
|
| I think the phone interface is great and allows use from lots
| of international feature phones.
|
| I just used it and think it's way better than having a custom
| app or web site.
| naetius wrote:
| I think that's addressed in the FAQ:
|
| > Currently, we only have a US based phone number that can be
| used to interact with our service. We understand that this can
| be expensive in some countries, so we will be working on a
| WhatsApp integration for the future.
| rvba wrote:
| Why not email
| moffkalast wrote:
| Why not Zoidberg?
| xenomachina wrote:
| Or a web app?
| colecut wrote:
| Why an app if it can be done without
| 6510 wrote:
| POST seems fine(?)
| Jun8 wrote:
| The biz case here is interesting: I had no idea what the postage
| rates are from the US, so checked and saw that they _start_ at
| $1.45. Maybe you can get bulk rates from the USPS but let's
| assume that's the shipping cost. Let's assume <50c for printing
| so roughly $2 per postcard. That only leaves $1 for profit & op
| expenses which sounds a bit low.
|
| What am I missing here?
|
| Additionally, I would not be OK to enter friends' addresses in a
| random app.
| notpeter wrote:
| My assumption is that they are not handling mail pieces and
| just outsourcing everything via the PostGrid API. Public
| pricing for a domestic 4x6 full color postcard $0.74. [1]
| There's no international pricing listed, but given that a
| domestic postcard stamp is $0.48, printing is ~$0.26 so add
| international forever stamp ($1.45) so $1.71/card. Stripe is
| 2.9% + $0.30 ($0.39 on $2.99). They are using Twilio so that's
| $0.01 for an inbound/MMS and just under $0.01 for the outbound
| SMS with a stripe link.
|
| Profit per card would be $1.84/card domestic and $0.98/card
| international. Excellent margins for a $2.99 product with no
| need to handle inventory.
|
| Seems like a great side project creating glue between three
| REST APIs (PostGrid, Stripe, Twilio) and I'd expect it'd
| generate sufficient free cash flow to cover its server costs
| and buy a few beers.
|
| [1]: https://www.postgrid.com/pricing-print-mail/#perunit
| derwiki wrote:
| http://directmailers.com is less a little expensive at $0.65
| morpheuskafka wrote:
| Domestic postcards cost $0.48 and international costs $1.45
| (which is not any discount from 1oz letter, unlike domestic).
|
| They could also mail them from another country (which might
| also have cheaper print costs), especially since this is all
| first-class and there is no guarantee of delivery speed.
|
| For example, it looks like sending an airmail postcard from
| China is 5 CNY which is about $0.70, less than half the US
| rate. If you can find a printer there of equal or lesser cost,
| that's a huge savings. If you want to really stretch things,
| you can use surface mail (which USPS does not offer) for 3.50
| CNY/$0.49 which is less than the cost to send it domestically
| within the US.
| Symbiote wrote:
| From Korea the rate is 430 won, roughly 33C/, and I suspect
| this is faster than sending from the PRC.
|
| According to some site, only Taiwan, Sri Lanka and Swaziland
| are cheaper for an international postcard.
| beardicus wrote:
| what you're missing is that not everything has to be a serious
| profit-making venture. sometimes humans can have fun.
| naetius wrote:
| Despite some of the negative comments here - as a postcard fan -
| I love this!
| Waterluvian wrote:
| [flagged]
| sjoerger wrote:
| FAQ says Stripe payment links. I don't think that is phone
| billing.
|
| > We use Stripe payment links to collect payments for
| postcards. In doing so, we are unable to see any sensitive
| information about your payment methods.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| That's good. Though phone numbers are so opaque. How can I be
| sure that's actually where it's going? How do I know if it'll
| cost me an MMS fee? Etc.
|
| Why not just an upload form with a checkout for paypal/credit
| card/etc.?
| sjoerger wrote:
| > Why not just an upload form with a checkout for
| paypal/credit card/etc.?
|
| <shrug> not my service
| naetius wrote:
| I've just tried the service all the way through and there's no
| phone billing whatsoever.
|
| It'll just shoot you a Stripe link.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| Thanks! Since you've tried it, do you have a better sense of
| why it requires this step and isn't just a normal web form?
| prepend wrote:
| I just used it too. And I think it's actually faster to go
| back and forth via text than to enter data in a web form.
|
| I can text faster than form enter. And the transaction is
| saved for reference.
|
| It's probably also cheaper to build since you don't have to
| design and host a web site.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| Welp... now I have to try it too because intuitively I
| can see that being true.
| naetius wrote:
| No clue but I'd speculate it's just meant to be something
| quirk and different/fun.
| naetius wrote:
| As a side note I must confess a certain degree of uneasiness
| reading some of the borderline-toxic comments, which - to be fair
| - are nothing new.
|
| This time around though it seems there's a certain obvious
| difficulty in certain commenters to contextualize what's being
| shown here.
|
| I understand that "oh but that could be an app/website/whatever"
| or that "it's an US phone number, I ain't gonna use that" or
| "ahhhh, this is gonna be abused soooo bad" and so on and so
| forth... but folks: this clearly is meant to be something quirky
| and - I think - a v1.
|
| Have we perhaps become a bit of a boring grumpy bunch around
| here? My 2c.
| madelyn wrote:
| Absolutely. This project is super cool!! I'll likely use this
| to send a postcard to some friends.
|
| Such a cool little website to start and it feels so indie!
| j45 wrote:
| A lot of folks forget just because they don't understand or
| agree with it doesn't mean there isn't understanding or
| agreement in it.
| rozenmd wrote:
| We are the folks that said Dropbox could be done with a few
| bash scripts, after all.
| duxup wrote:
| Not quite the same thing but I have meetings when I roll out a
| new feature that are "No suggestions" meetings.
|
| We still allow for enhancements / added features that in other
| ways, but some meetings are for learning, not the peanut
| gallery peppering people with ideas that occurred to them in
| the last 20 seconds and that believe it or not we know...
|
| We get it out and in customers hands and it is like magic how
| all these ideas sometimes prove to not be 100% necessary on day
| 1 ... sometimes never.
| FredPret wrote:
| I love this. Will this have the postage stamp from a particular
| country though? That's probably hard to implement, but it's
| what's magical about postcards to me
| arjvik wrote:
| Is MMS compression an issue? I typically never text photos from
| my android and instead rely on WhatsApp so they don't get
| compressed
| throwaway462910 wrote:
| FYI, they are still compressed, just not to such a massively
| noticeable level
| [deleted]
| jrmg wrote:
| You should add a 'tap to add to Contacts' link - I think a vCard
| would work?
|
| I don't want to send a postcard right now, but I'd definitely
| like to store the number for later use. It's actually kind of
| hard to do that, though, on iOS at least. Tapping opens up
| Messages, where there isn't an easy way to add to contacts
| without sending a message, and long-press doesn't seem to contain
| 'add to contacts' option. I'm stuck copying the number, launching
| Contacts, and creating a new contact by hand.
|
| [Edit: Uh, and this is cool! Sorry to be the first commenter with
| a slightly negative post! I love it.]
| croisillon wrote:
| from Messages: tap the phone number, then "info", then "add
| contact"
| playingalong wrote:
| It's totally not sure whether a snail mail made-of-paper postcard
| is meant. Or just some HTML email with a fancy border. I hope
| it's the former.
| anaganisk wrote:
| If you check their FAQ section, there is a sample in it.
| themanmaran wrote:
| To save a click, it is a real paper postcard
|
| https://postcardbot.com/assets/sample_postcard-76c114432a210.
| ..
| sneak wrote:
| Can we see a sample postcard? The link to a sample postcard is a
| render, not a photograph of a postcard.
| benburleson wrote:
| Yes, curious about this too. Maybe a quick video handling it to
| show the weight/quality.
|
| Really cool idea for a product though, love it!
| rpastuszak wrote:
| I don't have much time so excuse my brevity, but:
|
| I love the idea. It's simple, it's solves a user problem. You can
| explain it in 1-2 sentences. Setup = adding your number to the
| contact book.
|
| Tips/ideas:
|
| Consider adding a CTA pointing to a .VCF file so people can
| "install" your app with 2 clicks.
|
| Consider changing the design/bg photo a bit so the copy is more
| visible.
|
| Q: Could you share any details regarding your stack (tech or
| services)?
|
| I was thinking about building a slightly similar tool, but as a
| site where you could drag and drop a photo and then pay with
| Apple Pay. I think I like text more though.
| disqard wrote:
| What a lovely idea! OP, did you make this?
| schemescape wrote:
| Is the resolution of MMS high enough to make a good postcard?
| duxup wrote:
| I gave this a spin and sent a few cards.
|
| It was great, very low friction and easy to use.
|
| In the age of ChatGPT showing how easy a chat interface CAN be
| this seem really on point.
| sixhobbits wrote:
| I would love an email bot. I sent a message to the number from a
| prepaid EU sim, it told me to send an image, I sent an image, I
| got a "mms not supported" error. I remember mms from around 10
| years ago, not sure if they are still standard in US?
| berbec wrote:
| I just sent a photo from a US sim, using MMS, and it accepted
| the photo.
| unixhero wrote:
| Probably some imessage only business. Typical if US
| entrepreneurs, US only and only iphone.
| mahathu wrote:
| They should call it iMessage then and not SMS/texting.
| morpheuskafka wrote:
| You can't receive iMessages via an API, except for "iMessage
| Business Chat" which can't be started by inputting a phone
| number and isn't all that widely used.
| mwlp wrote:
| Not an API, but still doable to a certain scale. I've
| gotten image input to work with my bot. Apple once
| temporarily banned me for suspicious activity but after a
| quick call to support they lifted it. If I got more traffic
| maybe they'd ban it again, I'm not sure.
|
| You can text !help to sue [at] robertism.com to demo if
| you're interested.
| ericpauley wrote:
| Cool! Why does it require texting a phone number, though? Why not
| just put a form right there on the site?
| prepend wrote:
| Texting to a number makes it accessible from more devices. It's
| surprising how there's still places that don't have web but can
| send sms.
| stavros wrote:
| Texting a number makes it accessible from more devices out of
| 336 million, uploading a photo makes it accessible from fewer
| devices out of 7 billion.
| prepend wrote:
| 7 billion people don't have web access.
| stavros wrote:
| They don't need to. You only need 336 million of them.
| ericpauley wrote:
| The flow still requires Internet access to complete the
| purchase, though. Also, even in the US, all the legacy
| networks are gone and SMS (especially MMS) is being routed
| over LTE++ anyway.
| Swizec wrote:
| Unlike us HackerNews weirdos, most people don't really do
| websites on their phone all that much. They text a lot tho.
|
| The other day my mom said she can't figure out ChatGPT because
| she made an account but there's no icon on her desktop or phone
| and she doesn't understand where it went.
| XCSme wrote:
| Did you suggest installing the PWA? Or it doesn't have one?
| 13th_yc_acct wrote:
| Seriously? I thought everybody used their phone for their
| primary web browser. Only time i really use a browser is at
| work (or very occasionally while at home -- why walk across
| the room when a large part of the internet is in my back
| pocket?)
| Swizec wrote:
| From what I've seen normies browse the internet, not the
| web. Partially because that's what companies encourage.
|
| Links are for sharing only and even that is primarily for
| those annoying friends who aren't on the app you're using.
| My girlfriend for example can go hours without ever leaving
| instagram or tiktok. If the content isn't natively in
| there, it doesn't exist.
|
| And nobody ever clicks links I send them. Have had to start
| texting (iMessage) screenshots of articles and images or
| they just get ignored lol
|
| When I publish an article, most readers read it because it
| lands inside their email app. Short email with link? Nobody
| clicks that. Long email you can read without leaving gets
| way more engagement.
| 6510 wrote:
| Then you wanted to add the website icon to their iphone but
| it was intentionally made to complicated to remember how to
| do it. The onlookers make the _computers are hard_ facial
| expression. You explain it was intentional. They think you
| are just not very good with computers.
| dylanz wrote:
| I'm assuming it's so once you have that number in your
| contacts, you can just text photos to that number anytime
| without having to go to a website.
| ezconnect wrote:
| They are trying to replicate WeChat or the other web based text
| services.
| iakh wrote:
| Should probably replace the address in the sample postcard. While
| most here will probably get it's intent, I imagine your target
| audience will not appreciate any associations to "hackers"
| Etheryte wrote:
| I don't really see the problem, what's wrong with using a real
| address for the sample postcard?
| mahathu wrote:
| OP didn't criticise the choice of address not because it's
| not a real address but because of the associations of the
| term "hacker" outside of spaces such as here.
| jerzmacow wrote:
| Trying this out, I'll report back in a couple weeks!
| Havoc wrote:
| >STOP to unsubscribe
|
| Confused. Is this charged per shot or subscription?!?
| DANmode wrote:
| "Required" verbiage when sending automated SMS.
| pixel3234 wrote:
| Czech Post has an app that does. Local price is like a $1. It
| works worldwide regular international price.
| rvba wrote:
| Does that czech website have an address?
| faeyanpiraat wrote:
| Maybe this is the one (cant use translate on my phone):
| https://www.ceskaposta.cz/cs/ke-stazeni/mobilni-aplikace-
| poh...
| Symbiote wrote:
| * * *
| 2b3a51 wrote:
| UK is private enterprise rather than Royal Mail
|
| https://www.photowire.uk/
|
| One example I just found. PS2 to address in UK and PS3
| international.
|
| A thought has crossed my mind: if these kinds of site are
| quite common across the world and charge lower rates for
| sending cards within their local country, perhaps there is an
| opportunity for someone to set up a central Web site that
| finds you a local service? Add a small percentage?
| croisillon wrote:
| Seems to cost EUR2 internationally on this french website :
| https://www.merci-facteur.com/tarifs.php
| _trampeltier wrote:
| Switzerland has it too, since a long time.
|
| https://www.post.ch/en/sending-letters/sending-letters/postc...
| peter_d_sherman wrote:
| While I haven't tried this service and thus cannot vouch for it,
| I can say that:
|
| _" I love your business model!"_
|
| It's simple, it provides a lot of value for a little bit of money
| (yet still allows you, the owner, to make a tiny profit on each
| transaction), and it doesn't require a complex database driven
| website...
|
| Also, I'm guessing (but not knowing!) -- that a business like
| this could be started for $50 or less... the only thing you'd
| really need is a good enough postcard printer (OK, so maybe a bit
| more than $50 if you include that), some cardstock, and the
| willingness to make a trip to the post office (or local mail
| drop-off point) every day (or when orders were received...)
|
| Again, I reiterate, _" I love your business model!"_
|
| The only real thing that a business of this sort would need then
| is some online advertising...
|
| Google ads would be too expensive relative to the cost to acquire
| new customers -- so you'd have to advertise via single links
| posted here and there on public forums...
|
| Well, I upvoted you and favorited you here on HN -- which might
| generate a teeny tiny bit more traffic for you -- or so I hope!
|
| Wishing you and your business well, whoever you are!
| heartbreak wrote:
| They're running the print and mailing through lob.com
| peter_d_sherman wrote:
| Interesting!
| andirk wrote:
| [flagged]
| dang wrote:
| " _Please don 't post shallow dismissals, especially of other
| people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something._"
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
|
| _Don 't be gratuitously negative._
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html
| Racing0461 wrote:
| unlike spam, this has a cost per message ($3)
| nickphx wrote:
| That's a cool use of lob.com. I used their 'send a check' feature
| to automate sending payments for sweepstakes and contest prizes.
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