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Valentine’s Day is just around the corner, and rather than point you to the myriad places where you could find heart-shaped candy and fluffy teddy bears, I’m going to remind you that nobody ever said this day of love had to be confined to your boy or girl toy only. What about all those friends you have scattered across the country who you’ve been meaning to get in touch with…tomorrow. (“I promise!”)
Well, I put together a couple of fun services available to you on the web now, so that with minimal effort on your part, your friends and loved ones all over the place will get the message that they’re in your heart this coming Valentine’s day (or anytime!)
First up, who doesn’t love snail mail? The feeling you get when you open up your mailbox and there’s something inside it that isn’t a bill? Or some junk ad? Priceless! That’s why I love Blurtt, a fun service that makes it easy to send cute, customizable postcards to just about anybody you have a warm feeling about– you don’t even have to know their address! How does it work? When you pick a person to send your blurtt to, you can connect to them through Twitter, or Facebook Connect, or even just by knowing their email address– Blurtt will reach out to them and alert them that they have a friend who wants to send them something, and they provide their mailing address straight to the service, in a secure and verified trustworthy fashion. All you pay is 99 cents for everything, including the shipping! That’s pretty much foolproof, if you ask me.
Another cute entrant to the snail mail post card category is Tripletz, which is similar to Blurtt in that the product is physical post cards, but has it’s own unique twist: they are messages delivered in triplets. So picture this: you get one postcard at a time, and it always has just one word on it. Ultimately you will get three, and they will form a complete thought. The sample cards in the homepage first spelled out “You’re” + “Such” + “a Schmuck.” Upon reload, a new picture showed me “How” + “Are” + “U?” These three part messages are super cute and prolong the suspense and tingly feelings associated with getting mail. The complete message will set you back $4.99 plus shipping and handling, but the amount of awesome designs they have available AND the “buy three sets get one set free” deal make Tripletz a super compelling service, a promise of fun and laughs for just over $5. I’d do it!
The last entry in the snail mail category may just be my favorite. It’s called The Poetry Store and the service is exactly that! Here’s how it works: You want a poem. You choose from a selection of paper that your poem will get printed on. You fill out some vague “idea” you want it to be about, or a description of a person. The poem is ready in 6 minutes. The poet at the “store” types it up on an old school typewriter and ships it for you to the address you provided. For $6! If that’s not awesome, my name isn’t Maya. So you KNOW it’s awesome.
Finally, for all you digerati out there who are all “out with the old, in with the new” I will depart from snail mail for my last choice. We’ve all received an E-card at some point or another, and either laughed with pleasure or winced with pain. Those babies are definitely a hit or miss (very, very miss) type deal. But with SomeEcards, you can forget the sad, technicolor live-action e-cards of yore and welcome in snarky, fun, scathing and completely witty messages that just about anyone will appreciate. Check out these gems on the front page: “Show how much you care this Valentine’s Day by not picking her up in a Toyota.” (Yowch…and Hah!) Or, under the “Thinking of You” tab, “I hope you realize how empty your life would be without me.” I mean, you would have to have no sense of humor at all not to at least snicker. You can buy the cards in physical form through the store for about $2.49 each, but you could also send them as free ecards! Who doesn’t love free, and who won’t love some fantastically sarcastic, dry wit to brighten up their inbox?
No matter which of these services you choose, you could rest assured that the person on the receiving end of this deal will smile with the knowledge that you are thinking about them, no matter where in the world you are, at that very moment. Happy Valentine’s Day!
xoxo
tt.mg
twitter-@papayamaya
The love letter picture is creative commons to be attributed to SunshineCity on Flickr.
Guest writer tt.mg- Maya Grinberg is a young geek extraordinaire (or possibly an ordinaire, but she prefers not to think that.) She is a proud graduate of Cornell University and hails from New York City by way of Belarus. She transplanted to Silicon Valley to surround herself with the tech-loving community she dreamt of becoming a part of, and so far, it seems to be working.
