Friday, April 28, 2006

Snail mail online

Through the years I have been involved in many an exchange of various items via snail mail. This swap activity has accelerated in the past couple of years as I've been active in online snail mail art and exchange sites and groups such as www.nervousness.org, www.postcardx.net, various Yahoo groups, and others.

Uh, wait a minute ... online snail mail?

Yes, it sounds very strange, if you stop to think about it. Wasn't e-mail and the whole Internet deal supposed to make snail mail obsolete? Yeah, and personal computers were supposed to take us into a paperless society, and yet we are using even more paper in our homes and offices now than before.

Actually, the Internet and snail mail exchanges are great partners. See, online you set up a swap with a cool person -- or several cool people -- whom you would never have known existed if it hadn't been for the Internet. Then you send the stuff via snail mail, and aside from receiving whatever it is you are exchanging, you get to see the interesting postage stamps, open a physical envelope, and try to imagine all the places the letters passed through on their way from Timbuktu to you.

Pretty cool.

And by the way, I am hosting an exchange of freebie bookmarks (you know, the kind given away free with an advertisement or a public service message). The deadline to sign up for it is April 30th, and everyone is welcome to participate, so if this sounds interesting, have a look at:
http://www.swap-bot.com/swap/show/130

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

*stumbles around searching for the right place to leave a thank you note* Dear Robin, Thank you so much for the lovely book marks! It was so very nice of you to include an extra one!! I just cant put them between the pages of a book, I like looking at them.. As a matter of fact I have had them propped up beside my computer screen ever since they arrived, and the computer is where I spend most of my free time. Ohh, and before I go, I agree with you about your blog post, indeed the Internet and snail mail exchanges are great partners, I have become terribly spoiled and don't know what I would do without either of them. Have a wonderful day, and thank you again! April in Utah