4 ms·

This type of service used to be popular among expats from India at one point when Internet service in India was not as wide-spread. For some reason most of the

by grok2 15y ago

This type of service used to be popular among expats from India at one point when Internet service in India was not as wide-spread. For some reason most of the companies providing this type of service died out (the government run Indian postal service still seems to provide such a service though). Maybe there is some lesson to be learned from why a lot of these companies failed?

alexholehouse 15y ago
I'd argue that the use case was different (judging purely by what you've said, so correct me if I'm wrong). In the Indian expat community, this was providing "the" means to easily contact people (as opposed to positing a letter from somewhere else around the world), but clearly as internet connectivity appeared this turned out to be a lot easier than a middle man. As an aside, bizarrely, I was looking at India's internet and connectivity growth earlier today - it's a mad world! SendWrite is (as far as I can tell) not pretending it's the only way to contact someone, more it's allowing "physicalization" of your digital message, maybe where this is necessary (such as older businesses that haven't fully adopted the webz), but perhaps more just where getting/sending a letter is nice, because frankly, people like stuff they can touch. I'd imagine thank you notes, and things of that nature would be perfect.
- grok2 15y ago
  You are right in that contacting people was easier via the postal service that via the Internet. BTW, my intent was not to discourage sendwrite.com, but to see if any lesson can be learned from the earlier attempts and avoid those issues. One of the issues I can see is charging small amounts (micro-transactions) for occasional use...it seems like it would be hard to make money that way. But I can see them doing well if they provide choices of stationery, providing a hard-written service, etc for a monthly subscription for people who do have a constant need for such services.
  - alexholehouse 15y ago
    Yeah totally, I'd say people would almost welcome a subscription service - invariably this kind of thing is something you "should" do, and SendWrite just makes that easier. A subscription might make people use it more, as it adds a financial incentive to "get your money's worth", like paying for a gym is often the incentive people need to actually make them go.

by grok2 15y ago

alexholehouse 15y ago

I'd argue that the use case was different (judging purely by what you've said, so correct me if I'm wrong). In the Indian expat community, this was providing "the" means to easily contact people (as opposed to positing a letter from somewhere else around the world), but clearly as internet connectivity appeared this turned out to be a lot easier than a middle man. As an aside, bizarrely, I was looking at India's internet and connectivity growth earlier today - it's a mad world! SendWrite is (as far as I can tell) not pretending it's the only way to contact someone, more it's allowing "physicalization" of your digital message, maybe where this is necessary (such as older businesses that haven't fully adopted the webz), but perhaps more just where getting/sending a letter is nice, because frankly, people like stuff they can touch. I'd imagine thank you notes, and things of that nature would be perfect.

grok2 15y ago
You are right in that contacting people was easier via the postal service that via the Internet. BTW, my intent was not to discourage sendwrite.com, but to see if any lesson can be learned from the earlier attempts and avoid those issues. One of the issues I can see is charging small amounts (micro-transactions) for occasional use...it seems like it would be hard to make money that way. But I can see them doing well if they provide choices of stationery, providing a hard-written service, etc for a monthly subscription for people who do have a constant need for such services.
- alexholehouse 15y ago
  Yeah totally, I'd say people would almost welcome a subscription service - invariably this kind of thing is something you "should" do, and SendWrite just makes that easier. A subscription might make people use it more, as it adds a financial incentive to "get your money's worth", like paying for a gym is often the incentive people need to actually make them go.