5 ms·

Shortwave Snail Mail

23 points by mayop100 5y ago

pa9am 5y ago
I thought this was going to be about Winlink for some reason..
- Animats 5y ago
  I was thinking SailMail, which is a shortwave system for sending mail to small sailboats with limited electrical power.
somehnacct3757 5y ago
Sorry, my email address is worth more than 58 cents
mayop100 5y ago
The url https://.to https://.to also works, but HN apparently doesn't support emoji domain names...
- teitoklien 5y ago
  Good thing too, Emoji domains are a readability disaster.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
jacob019 5y ago
If you are not paying for the product then you are the product. They are not transparent at all about how they are monetizing this, which seems really scammy.
- rockwotj 5y ago
  Hey I'm an employee at shortwave.com (the startup behind this). I totally understand the pessimism - to be totally transparent, this is a marketing campaign to get our name out there. We're an email company, so why not send "real" mail during the holidays. We're not trying to make money doing this and it's a limited time offer :) There is really just a couple people with some printer templates, stamps, letters and some hot wax[1]. [1] We ordered a custom wax seal with our logo on it for this (pictures on the website) which I think looks great.
  - elil17 5y ago
    Are there other ads besides the wax seal? Am I going to end up sending my grandmother a packet of information about your company along with my holiday card?
    - rockwotj 5y ago
      There is a small bit at the bottom of the letter. You can preview it before you send.
  - infinityplus1 5y ago
    There is no pricing information on your main site either.
    - rockwotj 5y ago
      We're a still in private testing and don't have pricing yet
- jlund-molfese 5y ago
  If you go through the process, it seems pretty benign. Looks like the stationary has an ad for Shortwave at the bottom, and it unobtrusively reminds you that it’s a Shortwave service throughout. I think it’s clever, a marketing stunt like this is memorable and makes me curious about the company sponsoring it. Plus, the cost of acquiring a new lead can be pretty high for many SaaS companies. So Shortwave spending less than a dollar per prospect here isn’t suspicious.
mds 5y ago
Or if you actually want to send shortwave snail mail: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARRL_Radiogram https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARRL_Radiogram
- unsignedint 5y ago
  I thought of this, too, but with this, rather than delivering a physical piece of paper, they tend to call the recipient and deliver the message over the phone.
ale42 5y ago
... being an ham radio operator, I was hoping to see a shortwave-to-snailmail gateway... or maybe some historical information about some shortwave telegraphy system used somewhere in the past century to send actual mail from abroad...

23 points by mayop100 5y ago

pa9am 5y ago

I thought this was going to be about Winlink for some reason..

Animats 5y ago
I was thinking SailMail, which is a shortwave system for sending mail to small sailboats with limited electrical power.

somehnacct3757 5y ago

Sorry, my email address is worth more than 58 cents

mayop100 5y ago

The url https://.to https://.to also works, but HN apparently doesn't support emoji domain names...

teitoklien 5y ago
Good thing too, Emoji domains are a readability disaster.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

jacob019 5y ago

If you are not paying for the product then you are the product. They are not transparent at all about how they are monetizing this, which seems really scammy.

rockwotj 5y ago
Hey I'm an employee at shortwave.com (the startup behind this). I totally understand the pessimism - to be totally transparent, this is a marketing campaign to get our name out there. We're an email company, so why not send "real" mail during the holidays. We're not trying to make money doing this and it's a limited time offer :) There is really just a couple people with some printer templates, stamps, letters and some hot wax[1]. [1] We ordered a custom wax seal with our logo on it for this (pictures on the website) which I think looks great.
- elil17 5y ago
  Are there other ads besides the wax seal? Am I going to end up sending my grandmother a packet of information about your company along with my holiday card?
  - rockwotj 5y ago
    There is a small bit at the bottom of the letter. You can preview it before you send.
- infinityplus1 5y ago
  There is no pricing information on your main site either.
  - rockwotj 5y ago
    We're a still in private testing and don't have pricing yet
jlund-molfese 5y ago
If you go through the process, it seems pretty benign. Looks like the stationary has an ad for Shortwave at the bottom, and it unobtrusively reminds you that it’s a Shortwave service throughout. I think it’s clever, a marketing stunt like this is memorable and makes me curious about the company sponsoring it. Plus, the cost of acquiring a new lead can be pretty high for many SaaS companies. So Shortwave spending less than a dollar per prospect here isn’t suspicious.

mds 5y ago

Or if you actually want to send shortwave snail mail: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARRL_Radiogram https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARRL_Radiogram

unsignedint 5y ago
I thought of this, too, but with this, rather than delivering a physical piece of paper, they tend to call the recipient and deliver the message over the phone.

ale42 5y ago

... being an ham radio operator, I was hoping to see a shortwave-to-snailmail gateway... or maybe some historical information about some shortwave telegraphy system used somewhere in the past century to send actual mail from abroad...