Last weekend I decided to do a little mail experimentation. I have fun using my piles and piles of stationery and I am a bit random. SO I decided to sign up for sendsomething.com. This is a site where you can go on and get addresses to randomly mail people. They write their likes and dislikes and addresses. It's not very private and unlike postcrossing, you are not limited to how many you can send to. I'm not sure of the equiette of the site either, as to whether you have to send to the randomly generated address like postcrossing or not, (hopefully somebody will stop along and inform us).
But I have already recieved a piece of mail from the site.
I figure I'll give it a month, then I'll assess my mail experiment and see how I feel about it. I'll keep you all posted.
Things I don't love about it right now are the lack of knowing if the addresses are current and it is not very private at all. Not that my P.O. Box address is any mystery as it's posted to this site, but it's still a pretty open site, so precautions are warranted if you want to try it too.
Please feed the mailboxes!
-b
But I have already recieved a piece of mail from the site.
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| From Fast Eyes- gorgeous! |
Things I don't love about it right now are the lack of knowing if the addresses are current and it is not very private at all. Not that my P.O. Box address is any mystery as it's posted to this site, but it's still a pretty open site, so precautions are warranted if you want to try it too.
Please feed the mailboxes!
-b
You don't have to send it to the person that they randomly give you. Some entries don't even have addresses!
ReplyDeleteSince I'm one of the administrators at SendSomething I can answer your questions.
ReplyDeleteThere is no etiquette other than being kind enough to respond to people if they send you something, even if it is just a note on their profile. And, making sure your profile is up to date. At the moment there is no way to tell if some one is still active, so it's always good to edit your profile once in a while with an "active as of DATE" just so people know.
You can send something to anyone. No need to rely on the random button unless you want to. You can use the search page and find people who share an interest, or perhaps location (search zipcodes ... cities ... countries ... states are pretty hard because of the abbreviation).
You will ALWAYS run the chance that the person you write to is no longer participating, or has moved, sometimes long ago (but I have a bit of a work around for that I'll get to shortly). If you put your return address on the mail, you should get it back. It's always a gamble, which is how it was meant to be from the very start. There is never a guarantee of reciprocation. It is meant to provide joy for those who love to send something to bring a smile to a stranger without expectation of return.
Now, the work around. If you go to the search page, leave the search field empty and click "ok" you will get ALL of the Sendsomething profiles. The profiles at the end are always the newest. Look at the URL ... there is always a number at the end ... my number is 6 so I am the 6th person who signed on to the site. Usually the people on the last pages are going to be most active because they have signed up recently. But .. lots and lots of the people on the first pages are still very active.
As far as the kind of folk you meet on Sendsomething ... you wrote in your letter to me that they seem "edgy," which I guess is an accurate description. There do seem to be more people who live a bit more spontaneous that the majority of the population ... who march to a different drummer. But, that's what makes it so interesting.
As for privacy ... except that people have to have a logon to see addresses on S2, there is no privacy. It is a chance, but so is most everything you do online, and in real life. We often throw away paper with our addresses on it and that paper drifts around at the landfills for anyone to see ... the friendship books and slams that are so popular .. .those are often sold to prisoners! There is a balance that you always have to try to find between privacy and exploration. I've met some of the best people ever on Sendsomething but I've also had some scary folk. I'm just very careful and I always use my po box and username rather than real name.
There will be improvements to the site in the coming months. The guy who created it, João, is newly graduated from university and is now ready to take S2 to the next level. He is a careful guy, though, and wants to do this carefully, so the changes will probably be slow.
I hope that helps you out with S2. If not, you can post to my profile (I"m PostMuse there, too) and I'll respond :-)
More in the mail.....
that helps!
ReplyDeleteI use the site as well and have never had any problems. It certainly has been a big help to find new folks I can send my Mail Art 365 cards.
ReplyDeleteFar more of the freaky mail people I've encountered have been from other sources. I've had nothing but good experiences with Sendsomething!
ReplyDeletePostMuse pointed out the search feature; often, if I have a special yearning to send an Edward Gorey postcard to someone who will really appreciate it, I do a Sendsomething search for "Edward Gorey." I love the search feature.
...you could find other rabbit lovers that way... :-)
I actually did a rabbit search, not much luck, but I also have a peeps obsession, the Paris thing, the stationery thing, a fabric problem, books, vegetarianism, movies, etc. . . So I'm sure I'll find people to connect with.
ReplyDeleteWhat a neat site! I've note heard of it before and am looking forward to exploring it.
ReplyDelete