April 2013
4 posts
2 tags
4 tags
What does a trip through the mail look like? →
In theory, we all know what happens when something goes through the mail: it is picked up, put in crates and boxes, gets sorted more or less automatically, and is finally delivered by the hands of the local postman. If you’ve ever seen a mail sorting center before, you know that there are hundreds of meters of conveyor belts involved, and all sorts of complicated sorting machines… but...
4 tags
Postcrossing - Website delivers on promise of mail... →
“You can get more information from the Internet than you could get from the mail, but it’s different to be able, especially for kids, to touch this postcard that traveled thousands of miles and look at the stamp,” she said. “It’s something that it’s easier to relate to because it’s something you can touch.”
December 2011
2 posts
This is the Night Mail crossing the border, Bringing the cheque and the postal order, Letters for the rich, letters for the poor, The shop at the corner and the girl next door. Is this poem familiar to you? It’s part of the movie Night Mail, a 1936 documentary film about a LMS (London, Midland and Scottish) Railway mail train. We’ve talked about the Railway Post Offices before, but on...
Would you like to be able to exchange more postcards at the same time? If so, then we might have some good news for you! If we could just choose, we would love to allow everyone to send as many as they wish. However, limits are necessary in Postcrossing to keep the system balanced for everyone and also to keep the project safe. But we know that the current limits are particularly hard on new...
November 2011
4 posts
You might have seen these stamps and postcards around… they’re part of USPS’s GO GREEN program, meant to draw attention to the little things that you can do to make a difference and have a positive impact on the environment: Out of milk? Walk or bike to the store. Repair that drippy faucet—the noise was driving you crazy, anyway. Switch to energy-efficient light bulbs. Put on a...
The Singapore Philatelic Museum is once again preparing their annual exhibition dedicated to the Chinese Zodiac, this time featuring… dragons! These magical creatures have inspired legends and stories all around the world - from Saint George and the dragon, to Watatsumi, Tianlong or even… Dragon Ball! No matter the dragon you know best, the Singapore Philatelic Museum would like you...
Meet Amit Gupta. He’s the founder of Jelly and Photojojo, with who Postcrossing had a long lasting partnership. Amit found out some weeks ago that he had acute leukemia, a very serious condition. He needs a bone marrow transplant by the end of the month. The problem is, Amit is South Asian, and this ethnic group is severely under-represented in the bone marrow pool. He has little time left...
Today on the spotlight we feature ddonkey (aka Agata), from Croatia. She’s passionate about travelling, postcards and… donkeys! Check out her interview below:
How did you come across Postcrossing? What got you hooked?
I’ve been in love with postcards ever since I was a kid - who doesn’t love pretty portable pictures? But my first collection were stamps (equally pretty,...
October 2011
3 posts
Yes, you read that right! On October 14th, PostNL will launch a real stamp, featuring Postcrossing! How awesome is that? For us, it’s a huge honour that the project was deemed worthy of being featured in a stamp, and we’re very grateful to PostNL (the Dutch postal service) for making this dream come true. We’d also like to thank postcrosser Raymond68 - the Postcrossing stamp...
Today on the spotlight we feature bodrumlu (aka İbrahim), from Turkey. He’s an avid gamer and loves his first place on Turkey’s ranking of postcrossers!
Here is what he had to say:
How did you come across Postcrossing? What got you hooked?
In 2008, when I was a very active member of CouchSurfing, I had been looking for some websites to exchange postcards and stamps. I had seen a...
This week, the US Postal Service announced that it will start to honor living people in its stamps, in hopes of increasing public engagement with snail mail. Up until now, only deceased people were considered to be featured on their stamps, but this recent measure opens the door to a world of new possibilities… So we wanted to ask you: which living person would you like to see featured on a...
September 2011
2 posts
5 tags
Being a postman in Afghanistan is not for the... →
For the second post of the Stationery makers series, we’ve talked with Liz, from dicky bird. We found her online shop by accident, but were immediately drawn to her fresh and eye-catching illustrations. Her collection of greeting cards put a big smile so big on our face, so we knew we had to feature her on the blog :) Liz started her stationery business a year ago, but says that it was years...
August 2011
4 posts
Remember PostCarden, the postcard + garden combo? Another Studio for Design, the company behind this lovely invention has just come up with MatchCarden, a garden in a little matchbox! Aren’t they the cutest? We wouldn’t mind growing a few of these on our desks! To celebrate this new launch, they’re offering a set of PostCardens (includes 4 cards: Allotment, City, Football and...
Another exciting report from our dear little mail carriers! Australia is so big that they’ve decided to stay a little longer there, and visit another friendly postcrosser, Smileyfflagge! Meanwhile, they’ve been on newspapers headlines and gave radio interviews… seems like everybody wants to meet them! :) Read their story below:
We left Mundoo in South Australia on Thursday 23...
Wow! Last week’s Tasty Cards contest was incredibly popular, with 427 comments! Everybody had really nice suggestions, and we’ve heard that they’re already considering your ideas for new postcards! :) Without further ado, here are the names of the five lucky winners, chosen by Paulo’s random number generator: Calaquendi, transfer, elpis, aberline and riledup! ...
3 tags
July 2011
6 posts
The weather up here in North Germany has been cold and rainy for the past weeks, so we’ve been day-dreaming about southern beaches and warm sunny days. Pretty much like the ones in Balaklava, Ukraine, where a group of intrepid postcrossers decided they should have a meetup… on a desert island! The gathering was attended by postcrossers in the Sevastopol area, who loaded their kayaks...
Most people know the name of Charles Lindbergh. He was a great American aviator, most famous for being the first pilot to complete a solo non-stop transatlantic flight, from New York to Paris, in May 1927. But did you know that before his transatlantic adventures, Mr. Lindbergh was also a U.S. Air Mail pioneer (and later one of its advocates)? As a child, Charles Lindbergh had always been...
And now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for… the anniversary video! This year, we received over 400 photos from all corners of the world, and we are in awe of all your smiles and amazing postcards! Each time we watch this video, we’re reminded of how truly global the project is, and of the power that simple things have to brighten up our days. Ladies and gentlemen,...
Exciting news, everyone! We just got a big letter from the little mail carriers travel diary… they’ve been to Australia where they were hosted by Mundoo! Here’s their latest report from the road:
G’day Mates! Here we are in Australia or ‘down under’ as many of the Northern Hemisphere mates refer to Oz . We are visiting Mundoo or Vicki as she is also known....
5 tags
2 tags
June 2011
5 posts
4 tags
3 tags
Postcrossing Spotlight: BraveJ from Serbia →
April 2010
3 posts
Tamara, a nurse from British Columbia, Canada, collects many things including postcards. She sees Postcrossing as an extension of her caring personality. How did you come across Postcrossing? What got you hooked?
I had been active on other postcard sites prior to the genesis of Postcrossing. It was on the xpostcardx site that Megan Herring told me of Postcrossing. I found Postcrossing to be...
Sally, 45 y.o., New Zealand. She discovered Postcrossing through Bookcrossing. She enjoys gardening but was easily hooked on cards.
How did you come across Postcrossing? What got you hooked?
I was looking up bookcrossing and stumbled across Postcrossing. Postcrossing seemed to be able to a result quicker than the Bookcrossing. I sent, I received! I was hooked with the first card in my letter...
Good news, everyone! We have received another exciting page from the travel diary of our little mail carriers, postman Paulo and postwoman Ana! They were just in Cape Coral, hosted by yvi-1, and loved every minute of it! Here’s a report of their days in sunny Florida.
We arrived in Cape Coral, Florida, USA on a mild March day and quickly understood what the attitude in paradise was all...
September 2009
6 posts
Paul (pbesoo) is 32, lives in the Netherlands and he likes to explore the world through Postcrossing. Learn a bit more about someone who confesses himself as addicted to Postcrossing.
How did you come across Postcrossing? What got you hooked?
I read an article about a Dutch Postcrosser in the local newspaper. I saved the article, after a few months I activated my profile and since I’m...
When the Postcrossing project was launched 4 years ago, no one would guess that it could ever reach one million postcards. But it did, and, we have just reached 3 times that! What a milestone! Three million postcards! Three million connections! Three million smiles! We couldn’t be prouder of being part of this project.
And, this couldn’t be reached without every single member of...
If you didn’t notice yet, we are just a few thousand postcards away for reaching the postcard 3 million in Postcrossing!
Little over 6 months ago we could hardly believe we were celebrating 2 million Postcrossing postcards. And now, we are already speeding through another million - can you believe it? As always, we like to celebrate this important milestones of the project with you, and...
Today we would like to share with you a love story. It’s one of the many wonderful stories we receive from our members about their use of Postcrossing.
Hi! My name is Mircea and I want to tell you the story of the “relation” that I’ve created between my grandmother and Postcrossing.
My grandmother (mamaia – in Romanian – which is her name in Postcrossing) is a 78 years old lady living in...
Hello there! It took us a while to recover from the fabulous time we had in Helsinki, but here we are to tell you all about it :).
This big meetup was meticulously planned by Pooca, and exceptionally well executed. There were traditional Finnish games and yummy Finnish food, cute name tags, boat rides, visits to historical places, flea markets and an amusement park, lots and lots of presents...
What have rubber ducks to do with postcards? Kirsi (Huppu68) thinks they go very well together. She lives in Helsinki (Finland), and in this week Postcrossing Spotlight she’s going to tell us who is ‘Mauno’.
How did you come across Postcrossing? What got you hooked?
I read an article from the weekly magazine of Helsingin Sanomat newspaper and I registered to Postcrossing...
August 2009
5 posts
From joyful Brazil, meet Karina, a journalist from São Paulo who started collecting postcards after joining Postcrossing. Sounds familiar?
How did you come across Postcrossing? What got you hooked?
In 2005 I read in “O Estado de S. Paulo” newspaper about Postcrossing and I decided to try this new experience. I always liked to swap letters with my friends before the ‘e-mails...
Postcards tell us stories. About their journey, their sender, their origin. Their photo can tell a lot about the place where they came from and the stamps can share some history about the country too. But they still hold potential to tell much more. Thinking of this, Anna and Tess Knoebel have started Abe’s Penny - a micro-magazine in postcard format. Each monthly issue of Abe’s Penny...
On the remote country of Tonga in the South Pacific, there’s a very special island. It’s name is Niuafo’ou, but it’s most commonly known as Tin Can Island for the way mail was delivered and sent for many years. The concept of Tin Can Mail started in 1882 in this island when William Travers, a plantation manager, found himself without a way to receive mail from the rest of...
Our second Postcrossing spotlight interviewed member is 64-year old Adrienne (adriennegarry) from New Zealand. She has been in Postcrossing for more than three years already and she loves the good things in life. Here’s what Adrienne had to say:
How did you come across Postcrossing? What got you hooked?
My internet provider used to have a weekly bulletin with interesting web sites and I...
Who says Postcrossing is only travelling on your imagination? Postcrosser Felice Hutchings proves it isn’t. She decided that for her 50th birthday, she would do a trip in Europe, and that the stops would be her Postcrossing friends!
It went splendidly well, and we are happy that she shared with us her country hopping adventure in Europe. So here’s how it was in her own words - enjoy...
July 2009
3 posts
Few projects connect people from so many random contexts as the Postcrossing project. It’s amazing how diverse our users are and we are always eager to learn more from them. Thus, we decided to start the Postcrossing spotlight - interviews done with members of this project that we will publish every two weeks here on the Postcrossing Blog. We want to share with all of you how diverse our...
“Send a postcard and receive a postcard back from a random person somewhere in the world!”
On July 14th 2005 the Postcrossing project was open to the world with a goal: to connect people across the world through postcards, independent of their location, age, gender, race or beliefs. Any mailbox could be turned into a surprise box. But what started as a small pet project quickly turned into a...
We know many Postcrossers take their yearly break in the upcoming weeks to relax and visit new places. If you are one of those and you’ll be away from your home address for a while, we recommend you to switch your account to the Inactive state - you can do that easily just by editing your Postcrossing account. When you are back, all you need to do is to switch it back to Active and...
June 2009
3 posts
In a partnership with Japan Post, Nestlé Kit Kat and advertising agency JWT have come up with a clever and innovative concept: the Kit Kat postcards!
As the name suggests, these are small boxes of Kit Kat, that can be mailed as if they were a postcard. The product launch was timed with the university exams season, so that friends and relatives could wish students good luck in their studies with...
Have you been in a Postcrossing meetup before? How about an International Postcrossing meetup? If not, here’s your chance! Like all Postcrossing meetups, this one is also organized by the users themselves and it’s been in the works for quite some time. Now that the details are pretty much decided, it’s time to spread the word. This International Postcrossing meetup is going to be...
On the last post, some of you wondered what kind of objects can be sent through mail. Well, here’s a cool project that tests the limits of postal services (and their patience too!): To Mr. Cheng.
Artist Eric Ericson, from Sweden, spent a few years sending all kinds of unwrapped objects through the mail: food, a skeleton, a baby doll, books, vinyl records, a pair of glasses, individual...
