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Dustin Curtis's new web app
- byteCoder 17y agoThis reminds me of the service from the 1980s (was it Sprint Mail?) where you could dial up (over a 300 Baud modem), type a letter, and it would be physically mailed to an address. At the time, it was several dollars per page.
- mcantelon 17y agoGreat idea. I hate the hassle of sending physical mail the $1 is well worth it. Do you/will you offer the service to/from/within Canada?
- kyro 17y agoYeah, I was inquiring about international mailing, but from what the footer says, it's only limited to the US.
- SlyShy 17y agoInteresting. I wonder if dcurtis would mind describing some details of the operation. Is the postage being printed too, or are stamps being affixed some other way? And I guess someone is still delivering the mail to a box or post office--would that get annoying?
- dcurtis 17y agoI had a beagleboard (beagleboard.org) sitting around in my closet, so I figured I should do something with it. When you create a letter on Snail, the beagleboard pulls from the heroku database, formats the letter, prints it, and then sends me an email saying it's ready to be stuffed into an envelope. (Well... sort of. In a perfect world, that is what would happen. Unfortunately, there are some bugs that I am still trying to work out.)
- jeremymcanally 17y agoYou should invest in a cheap trifold folder and an envelope/postage printer (or envelope tray for your existing, presumably laser, printer). That would cut down your operations time a lot if it gets popular. Though, I think big, sooo probably not worth the cash.
- percept 17y agoI've always wondered what Netflix does. Is their DVD handling/mailing a manual process?
- philwelch 17y agoPretty much, you can't trust users to send DVD's back in the mailing envelopes in any kind of reliable state (at all, one to an envelope, with the barcode facing out the window, with the correct disc in the correct slipcover, with the disc in any slipcover) so they have assembly lines of people to tear the envelopes open, check the right DVD is in the right slipcover, and so forth.
- percept 17y agoThanks. Is that posted somewhere? Is shipping out to customers more automated? I always wonder about stuff like that.
- phreanix 17y agoLOL that's precious, an email to notify you to send snailmail.
- barmstrong 17y agoThis was my biggest questions too, how much you were able to automate it. This seems like it would really only be viable if you could eliminate the human step as much as possible. Like, ideally, some sort of machine that printed, stamped, folded or put in some kind of envelope, and dropped it in a bucket of outgoing mail that the postman could play with. If you can work ON the process instead of IN it then there is some potential for this to work on volume, but overall really cool idea, props!
- Huppie 17y agoI actually wonder what is faster. Sending a snail-mail using regular airmail towards the US or sending one through this service :) At least it's 30% cheaper and saves me the time of formatting a letter and walking to the mail-office.
- RiderOfGiraffes 17y agoI suppose if the service gets popular you'll have to find some way to make it pay, otherwise it will cost you a fortune in stamps. Any plans? Or is it "Wait and see.." ??
- dcurtis 17y agoWell, the dollar breaks down like this: * 10c to paypal * 44c to stamp * 40c for envelope and paper I make about 6c on each letter.
- fuelfive 17y agoWhat about your time? Is that the 6c, or does paypal somehow automate this?
- bokonist 17y agoDude, raise your price! The difference between $1 and $2 is immaterial to the buyer (heck, it costs me $1 in lost wages just in the time it takes to fill out the order form). Yet raising the price on your end will result in 1500% increase in bottom line profits. That's a no-brainer. You may even want to go as high as $4.
- gcheong 17y agoHow fast can you fold, stuff and seal an envelope?
- ericb 17y agoWhat type of envelope and paper cost that much?
- agazso 17y agoLove the glowing aura around text boxes. Beautiful design.
- kevinholesh 17y agoPerfect! Now no one will see me when I send my "Dear Penthouse" letters... In all seriousness, this is a good idea, but you might be cutting yourself short on the profits. 6 cents a letter for probably 5 minutes worth of work? I think you should charge $1.50 a letter and make about 56 cents instead. Overseas business people might still be willing to pay that.
- antidaily 17y ago"I never thought this could happen to me..."
- paraschopra 17y agoIs it just for US? Or can one send letters all around the world?
- kaffeinecoma 17y agoIf this gets popular, you could hire a few helpers to handle the printing/mailing. The job ad could go something like "Work from home. Get paid to stuff envelopes!" :-)
- SlyShy 17y agoYeah, the service could be distributed so that the letters can be printed and mailed by any number of people.
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- bprater 17y agoBuild a API dude. This type of service can be useful to some of us who need to send snail mail to customers when they sign-up, cancel, etc. And I agree with everyone else about the prices. Eventually 6c won't cut it and then you'll have to jerk the price up. $1 sounds sexy, but you need to eat.
- dcurtis 17y agoWell I just built this for fun, and I will definitely end up in the red overall. How many people would use a physical mailing service like this, if it had an API and lots of options for paper and envelopes?
- ananthrk 17y agoLooks beautiful. Sorry to nitpick. But, in the preview letter page, it reads "Make a mistake?". It should instead read "Made a mistake?"
- jlees 17y ago[Did you] make a mistake? is kind of valid, no? Casual, but acceptable.
- catch23 17y agoHow about an api so that we can script it? ;-) Would make it a lot easier for Amnesty International. All that handwriting makes my hand numb!
- adelevie 17y agotalk about coincidence!
- adelevie 17y agoWhere's the API?
- chrischen 17y agoHey cool I had this idea once.
- mel_llaguno 17y agoThe problem with your business model is that you will not really make any money with a 6% margin. How about this? Start out with $2 a letter, then give bulk discounts based on the volume of mail sent. It seems that a lot of the comments here suggest that the API would be useful in a MASS mailling campaign. Your pricing should reflect this requirement without breaking the bank. Single letter users will in effect subsidize the mass mailers.
- ryanwaggoner 17y agoThere's a bunch of these services out there, but here's a couple that may be interesting: http://www.postful.com/ http://www.postful.com/ http://www.l-mail.com/ http://www.l-mail.com/ Both look pretty clean and offer various capabilities to send lots of letters more efficiently, including an API.
- JeremyStein 17y agoI use ezgram.com. Same idea, same price.
- mrduncan 17y agoCompared to Dustin's though, both of those hurt my eyes to look at. This reminds me of Posterous, blogging is a crowded market but they differentiated themselves by being beautiful and dead simple. Competitors are good, it just proves that there's a market for a service like this.
- ryanwaggoner 17y agoPretty much everything hurts my eyes compared to Dustin's work :) In all seriousness, I thought Postful looked pretty good.
- diN0bot 17y agobeauty and pain are in the eye of the beholder...
- techiferous 17y agoUp to a point... http://www.angelfire.com/super/badwebs/ http://www.angelfire.com/super/badwebs/ (warning: autoplay music)
- goodkarma 17y agoI love the idea of a printed letter API (like what postful.com has) as a solution to send automated letters to people. First one that comes to mind is to send a letter to someone if they do a chargeback or their credit card was declined. I look forward to implementing something like this!
- adelevie 17y agokeep an online archive of threaded conversations.
- Jakob 17y agoIn Germany the official post office provides this service for 1,90 Euros (stamp costs 0,55 Cents). https://www.schreibcenter.de/schreibcenter/ https://www.schreibcenter.de/schreibcenter/ I like the interface of your service!
- zaidf 17y agoI wish I could mail myself a note on a certain date. Would be cool to receive a one year old note from myself next year.
- dcurtis 17y agoWow, that's a great idea. I'm adding that feature right now.
- axod 17y agoCould be a real market for that... "Ensure you receive at least ONE brithday card, by sending it youself! By the time your birthday comes round you'll have forgotten you sent it, and will be pleasantly surprised." Also things like sending letters a year on, with a reminder of what you hoped to achieve that year etc.
- WesleyJohnson 17y agoI was thinking along the same lines. There are already services for sending emails into the future (futureme.org is one), but I think being able to do it with actual mail is a clever idea. One commercial use might be for real estate agents sending letters to new homeowners 1/2 months into the future asking them how they're doing, etc. I think that would seem a bit more personal than just an email. I always enjoy it when I start receiving mail at a new residence!
- jimbokun 17y ago
- symptic 17y agoI can see this being very useful for businesses wanting statements and comments for the record.
- notaddicted 17y agoSomebody has to say it: In the year 2009 snail mail is grossly inadequate. 1. Does it prove anything? No. Sign something with a private key, that is proof. 2. Is it better for record keeping? No. Fires, floods, and rot are all enemies. Storing it digital allows one to replicate a lifetime of mail in 10 seconds. 3. Aesthetic? Only if you have a strong packrat or nesting instinct. 4. Cheaper? No. Not by a fucking longshot, not even close. Take a one dollar bill out of your wallet, burn it, and send an email.
- arnorhs 17y agoIt's good for grandparents though
- symptic 17y agoYou are right, but keep in mind some organizations and processes still "trust" a time-stamped hard copy more than an email. We're fortunate enough to be very tech savvy, but this service, to me, is meant to be an accommodation to those who refuse to join us or are stuck in the past, or those who think it's a fun thing to try.
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- Osmose 17y ago1. Public/private key authentication is, as of 2009, still not something the mainstream internet user can figure out to do easily. I'd guess most don't even know it exists. 2. I can also delete a lifetime of mail in 10 seconds. The steps required to redundantly store or back up data require either knowledge the layman doesn't have or expensive software (assuming they don't know of the free alternatives). 3. Letters are like books in that there will always be people who prefer the personal feel of paper and ink to a computer screen. 4. Agreed. You seem to be assuming that his market is YC users or other techies. As stated in other comments, this has great applications for the elderly, non-techies, and people in other countries wanting to send mail to the US.
- RiderOfGiraffes 17y agoThe vast majority of people I know don't know about digital signatures. Most of the remainder can't use them, and are uncertain of how to verify them. The result is that they don't trust them. They all, however, understand and trust a piece of paper with a statement and signature. Dustin's service doesn't solve that, but your comments are, quite simply, ahead of the game, and detached from current reality. That reality, as is always the way with reality, changing, but that change takes time. EDIT: First paragraph re-written.
- spicyj 17y agoThe ability to send a PDF would be nice, so I know exactly what the printed product will look like, and I can use my own fonts if I like.
- symptic 17y agoSeconded, although that would take away from how straightforward the service is.
- YuriNiyazov 17y agoThere's another competitor that wasn't mentioned: www.mailaletter.com None of the competing services that I know of provide an API, and if dcurtis releases an API that would be a significant edge.
- andreyf 17y agoPostalMethods has an API: http://www.postalmethods.com/postal-api http://www.postalmethods.com/postal-api
- adityakothadiya 17y agoWhat about privacy? So looks like this isn't useful for sending private and serious mails.
- djb_hackernews 17y agoWild, so he is actually folding, stuffing, and licking the stamp? At 6 cents/per he'd need over 100 mailings/hr to come out around minimum wage. I like the API idea, pdf idea, maybe .doc files. You could do what those efax places do for free faxes and include an advertisement in the envelope. Hell, put advertisements on the envelope itself.
- robotrout 17y agoI've just been pondering such a service, as the result of a friend of mine, being moved to an assisted living facility. He has no email there, and wouldn't be able to use it if he did. I would love to send him quick updates on my life and my kids, but, while I could spare him five minutes to dash off an email and attach some photos to it, the task of printing the photos on a color printer, finding his address, etc., usually gets the task procrastinated, sometimes for weeks, in that "I'll do it tomorrow" procrastination dance. My thoughts on this line were as follows. 1) It needs to allow photos. They can be an extra charge of course, but I would want to send photos. 2) There's a ton of paper handling equipment out there. If you invested about $20K, maybe 10K if you bought used, I would think you could get a solution that was 100% automated. It printed, stapled, folded, printed the envelope, and stuffed the contents. A service with such an automated capability, that showed pictures of their equipment on their website so I knew it was real, would definitely be reassuring from a privacy standpoint, as well as a reliability standpoint. 3) As for API, my thought was to make the whole thing, just email. Parse incoming emails to confirm the sender is an account holder. Parse the email for the markup headers that you define to designate recipient address. If they don't exist, fire off a reply email to the same address, telling them they messed up and didn't mark up their submission properly. Done. No visiting your website at all, after I set up my account. 3a) I would also suggest a way for me to assign frequently used snail mail addresses as part of an email address. For example, say you assign me the email address QWERTY@mailservice.com. Whenever I mail to that address, you know it's my account, and send the contents of the appropriately marked up email to the recipients. OK, fine. But now, allow me to assign sub-addresses. So, for example, if I email QWERTY.terry@mailservice.com, and I've already defined the address of terry, now I don't have to mark up my email at all. I just put QWERTY.terry@mailservice.com into my email address book, and my friend Terry is the same as contacting anybody else with email. With such a system, mailing somebody and emailing somebody take exactly the same steps on my part. In fact, I can even CC them on an email I send to somebody else.
- neelesh 17y agoIt would be great if I can select a template for my mail.Definitely not on the landing page, it would clutter such a nice and clean page. May be a 'More...' option?
- jrockway 17y agoHow many death threats has this service sent so far? There should be a counter for that at the bottom of the page.
- shawndumas 17y agoFYI: The return from paypal is broke... http://localhost:3000/success?merchant_return_link=Return+to+dustincurtis.com http://localhost:3000/success?merchant_return_link=Return+to... Edit: Also, a personalized handwriting font upload would be neat.
- zhyder 17y agoLooks slick. Minor issue with Safari/Webkit's resizable text area feature though: you can resize a text area beyond the fancy border surrounding it.
- zaidf 17y agoNow you just gotta wait for google adsense to subsidize snail mail.
- Everest 17y agoA couple thoughts 1). I usually love Dustin's work but am acutally underwhelmed by the design. I hate the black on white. It hurts my eyes 2.) Snail mail is meaningful becasue it shows that the person took time to WRITE and then send a letter. Its not nearly as meaningful if its typed up.
- mkyc 17y agoDear downvoters, In this community, we don't vote based on whether or not we agree. We vote up if we think it is worth reading, regardless of whether we agree or not. We downvote when the message is inappropriate - flames and trolls, cheap humor, that sort of thing. I don't go to the comments to see who agrees with me, I go there to see who disagrees, and why. Sincerely, mkyc
- techiferous 17y agoUpvoted because I agree with you.
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- fredBuddemeyer 17y agomore useful and unique (?) would be the ability to receive snail mails and truly interface with the snail world. requires a lot more (like a mechanical turkish army in different postal jurisdictions) but worth a lot more.
- bhseo 17y agoRelated thread: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=915000 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=915000
- grinich 17y agoHopefully he doesn't send swine flu to everybody! http://twitter.com/dcurtis/status/5187063511 http://twitter.com/dcurtis/status/5187063511
- AmyHanes 17y agoThat's a nice and simplistic interface however I've been using PostalMethods (http://www.postalmethods.com http://www.postalmethods.com) for awhile and they offer an email interface and a Web Service API (http://www.postalmethods.com/postal-api http://www.postalmethods.com/postal-api) for a cheaper price when sending regularly. They also support postcards. I think Dustin's service is most suitable for occasional letter senders while PostalMethods is most suitable for businesses wanting to automate their mailing.