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.
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.
No, the example given was voice clips. Your idea of a "trial run" is interesting, but I doubt that they're doing this to get some extra logistics practice. Unlike gmail or wave, mass mailing is a well-explored domain.
They're doing it to put the gmail logo on your fireplace mantle. Which is just fine, because you might not otherwise have sent a cheerful card. Plus their snowflake pun is hilarious.
Mass mailing might be, but highly-individualised large-batch mailing? Every card distinct? Even if this is largely a holiday gift, I'm certain they're collecting data on it. The only question is what. Maybe some of the cards will be "tracers" sent to confederates who can verify delivery times of things sent in big batches? Maybe they have multiple printing-and-distribution locations throughout the country and they're testing those? Who knows....
>They're doing it to put the gmail logo on your fireplace mantle.
I'd buy the argument if I was allowed to send, say, ten of them instead of just one. One would think that, if the value of piquing the interest in GMail of my first choice recipient exceeded $0.25, then the value of sending a card to my third or forth choice would also have a positive ROI.
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.
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
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.
>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.
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."
Do companies usually disclose that they're collecting information when they're already, well, collecting it?
But if they weren't going to use it, they would disclose that, and they do: "information supplied here will not be retained or used for any purposes outside of delivering your card"
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.
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.
Hanukkah is celebrated secularly by the large minority of Jews that are not religious. It's only celebrated and recognized so widely because of its close proximity to Christmas, the most important holiday in the United States, the celebration of commercialism.
Maybe in some parts of the USA. I have a wooden dreidel on my desk. I grew up in an area with a moderately large Jewish population, and have long been interested in their culture and history.
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.
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.
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.