Postcrossing
Postcrossing is a project, inspired by bookcrossing, designed to allow people to receive postcards from all over the world. Participants who send a postcard should receive at least one back, from a postcrosser in another country. Because each postcard received is registered with the website, users are able to generate global-scale maps of destinations which they have sent cards to and received cards from, and review the journey times of mailed items.
There are now (July 2006) 11,721 members from 125 countries. More than 161,081 postcards have been received because of this project and about 21,229 are currently travelling. Maps generated of the site's general activity reveal higher concentrations of users in Europe and North America than in other areas, with Finland and the U.S.A. being the only countries to have broken the 30,000 postcards sent barrier.[1][2]
How it works
- Register to get a login.
- Request up to five addresses and postcard IDs.
- Mail postcards to these addresses. When one of your postcards arrives, the recipient registers its ID. Your address will then be given to another postcrosser in another country so they can send you a postcard. You also will be eligible to request another address.
- Wait to receive postcards from other postcrossers.
- Register the postcard ID of the cards you have received.
Forum
The website has an official forum which allows members to discuss many aspects of the project with other members, as well as participate in games, tags (see below) and postcard swaps. There is also an off topic section for threads not related to Postcrossing.
Tags
Tagging is an alternative way of obtaining specific postcards that you desire from other members on the forum. There are many different tags which all have a specialised theme eg. Sheep Tag. One member will tag the forum member that has posted above them, ask for their address and sent them a postcard that is related to the tag theme. Then someone will post in the thread and 'tag' them, therefore sending that person a postcard.
Tags are used by many members who collect specific types of postcards, as they can participate in whichever tags they want.
Bingo
Bingo is a popular game which is played on the forum. The aim of the game is to receive postcards from as many different places as possible, in order to score bingo. For example, a bingo might be New Zealand bingo. There are 16 listed regions in New Zealand and once a user has received postcards from all 16 regions, they have achieved bingo. The same can be done for sending postcards.