Xobni co-founder Matt Brezina is launching a fun and clever product today to let iPhone users send real, physical postcards directly from your iPhone (or from the Web). Postagram is the app. Sincerely is the new company he started to create it.
Postagram uses the Instagram API. It requires that users have an Instagram login and the app installed on their phone. But from there, it looks like a quick procedure to select a photo from your Instagram library, put a message of up to 140 characters on it, address it (unfortunately the app can't access your phone's address book directly), and have it sent out as a postcard through the mail.
The postcard itself has a clever twist: The Instagram-styled square photo can be popped out of the postcard that carries it. Unlike traditional postcards, the image doesn't take up the whole front surface. (The SMS-length message and the photo are on the front; I haven't seen one yet so I don't know what's on the back, aside from the address.)
It costs 99 cents to send a Postagram, payable via credit card since Apple won't let companies sell physical goods through its App Store payment system. That's a completely reasonable fee for taking the cheapest of social gestures--sending a photo to someone electronically--and making it more real and valuable. … Read more