Happy holidays from Gmail: Free snailmail gift cards

https://services.google.com/fb/forms/gmailholidaycard/

by genieyclo • 17 years ago

73 47 17 years ago

services.google.com

hubb• 17 years ago

only valid inside the states :(

mrtron• 17 years ago

There are many companies in the states.... :)

Maybe you want to thank Google for offering Gmail...from Gmail...to Gmail...

aarongough• 17 years ago

My thoughts exactly... I was hoping I could be a cheapo and send a card back home to the family in Australia! :-p

nym• 17 years ago

I sent myself a love note. I can't wait to get it in the mail!

bockris• 17 years ago

I sent a card to my kids telling them that Google has searched the global index of nice/naughty kids and they were found on the nice list.

I haven't told my wife. I want to see how much she freaks out when it comes in the mail.

joblessjunkie• 17 years ago

Also known as "Add your non-Gmail using friends to our direct marketing mailing list."

aw3c22• 17 years ago

and "give your friend's address to a monopoly corporate entity without their agreement". This is another scary chapter for privacy.

icey• 17 years ago

What does Google have a monopoly over?

genieyclo• 17 years ago

I wonder if they manually check all the letters...would take too much work I'm thinking, so how can they check for spam or bots that auto send lots of them with spammy messages? (you could send varied spam messages as well) EDIT: didn't read the part about 1 card only

bbq• 17 years ago

Well, gmail IS pretty good at filtering spam

jack78902• 17 years ago

Anyone know why they're doing this?

aw3c22• 17 years ago

Probably to get address data (nicely linked in social relationships).

jack78902• 17 years ago

Wouldn't they disclose that? Also, if that were the aim, why limit everyone to a single card?

rms5• 17 years ago

>information supplied here will not be retained or used for any purposes outside of delivering your card.

This might actually be purely benevolent, or at least not bad, just your every day cheap marketing project. Some designer's 20% time project that had no reason to not be approved.

daydream• 17 years ago

That's what I thought too, but on the page they state:

"Cards containing inappropriate content will not be mailed, and information supplied here will not be retained or used for any purposes outside of delivering your card."

christonog• 17 years ago

I think Google's banking on people using this tool to send postcards to their non-email friends & family. I think it creates good brand recognition for those that may not have an email address or use email rarely.

Timothee• 17 years ago

I don't think there's any other reason than old school marketing. The same way they had free Gmail stickers at some point.

Your Mom get the card, put it on the fridge and learn that her son is using Gmail. At Christmas, maybe you should ask him what it is... etc.

That plus the fact that we are now talking about it. :)

Tawheed• 17 years ago

Didn't they buy Postini? I think they may be leveraging their stuff for this.

edw519• 17 years ago

Finally! A chance to drag my mom, who doesn't have a computer, into the internet age!

Since it doesn't look like it handles HTML or images, here's what I sent her:

     Happy Holidays, Mom!

           \/\/\/\/        
         /         \       
        /           \      
       /             \     
   /\_/     0    0    \_/\ 
  |                       |
   \/ \      |_|      / \/ 
       \             /     
        \  \-----/  /      
         \         /       
          \_______/        
            |   |

         Love, Eddie

rms5• 17 years ago

Here's hoping it handles monospace...

AdamGibbins• 17 years ago

Here's me wondering how you hacked the site to allow you to enter that many characters.

ars• 17 years ago

If he used tabs it wouldn't be that many.

nailer3• 17 years ago

The cards acknowledge Judaism, but not Christianity.

This isn't unheard of, but I expected more from Google.

rms5• 17 years ago

They acknowledge a (very) secular symbol of Christmas (Rudolph) as well as a secular symbol of Hanukkah. It's just that an expectation to be inclusive with these types of things means an explicit acknowledgement of Judaism. And the design they have is pretty cool.

The Dreidel is a secular symbol that happens to be much older than Rudolph; a menorah would have been inappropriate in the same way as an image of Jesus in the manger.

bumblebird• 17 years ago

>> "Do-it-yourself dreidel"

It seems quite odd to include this one IMHO. I had to look it up to know what it was. Is it more widely known in USA?

nailer3• 17 years ago

I'm don't think there is a secularly celebrated version of Hannukah. If you have any references for this, please state them.

Christmas is celebrated as both a religious holiday (by large groups of people in the US and UK, which are large markets for Google) as well as a secular one.

TeHCrAzY• 17 years ago

Why do they need to acknowledge anything? Is this an American concept?

nailer3• 17 years ago

In the US, UK, Germany and Australia at least, it's considered polite to acknowledge other's beliefs around their religious holidays.

selven• 17 years ago

If you're talking about the dreidel, I don't think any other major religion or culture has a christmas-specific object like the dreidel (that is, a toy that you can build yourself out of paper). It's like berating someone for planting a Christmas tree in his garden but not a turban.

mcav• 17 years ago

You can print these too -- even in high res:

http://mail.google.com/mail/help/holidaycard/print.html

ShabbyDoo2• 17 years ago

It will be interesting to see from where these cards are postmarked. That will provide a good clue about Google's seeming benevolence.

When I worked on medical records software, I looked into some companies that offered an API for sending snail mail. Doctor's offices spend a lot of time sending out form letters, and it seemed like it would be cool to automate sending out lab results letters. Obviously, email would be preferred (given patient consent), but physicians have to deal with the lowest common denominator (while blissfully ignoring illiteracy). Perhaps Google is experimenting with such a service? However, given all the things Google could provide to Apps users, this seems pretty low on the list.

I'd put money on this being an experiment or beta test in disguise as holiday cheer. Think GOOG411 -- a great way to collect voice samples.

davis• 17 years ago

That's an interesting take on it, I wonder what they could possibly use a 255 character Christmas greeting for.

simonista• 17 years ago

Right down at the bottom of the page: "information supplied here will not be retained or used for any purposes outside of delivering your card."

arantius• 17 years ago

But the OP is specifically talking about information specifically besides that "supplied here". Like, measuring how much it really costs, the hidden challenges, etc, in setting up a large automated mailing system.

joezydeco• 17 years ago

How much you wanna bet all these addresses get mailed an offer for a Chrome OS-enabled netbook when it's ready?

bryanwoods• 17 years ago

This is great!

I work at a startup building apps ( http://zerography.com is currently live; hopefully more soon) to get custom printed stuff into people's hands for free, and think it's really great to see Google getting involved.

There's something extra special about getting a letter or package in the mail, and with the amount of time and cost involved in mailing something to friends and family, I'm really surprised I (and almost everyone else I know, too!) don't take advantage of things like this more.

bshep• 17 years ago

A friend of mine has a hand-made e-postcard service as well, they are free but he doesnt mail them. Its pretty off the wall.

http://xn--74h.cohitre.com/

petercooper• 17 years ago

Super duper - let's dump a ton more paper into the mail system that people can end up either recycling or, more likely, throwing into landfill.

I'm not even an environmentalist (though an avid recycler for economic reasons) but I'm surprised the big G would come up with something as wasteful as this.

Happy holidays from Gmail: Free snailmail gift cards

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