Modern technology killing seaside postcards
Open sauce
Video may have killed the radio star, but a new report has found that emails and picture messaging could be killing off the traditional holiday postcard.
Bamforth's 'cheeky' postcards have been around since about 1890
Broadcaster ITV surveyed 2000 people recently about the ways they keep in touch with friends and family during a holiday. Some 67 per cent admitted to going online to, say, send an email or upload photos while sunning themselves.
So much for 'getting away from it all'...
The report claims such holiday connectivity has led to a 75 per cent decline in the number of postcards send from holiday destinations over the past ten years. Although Register Hardware thinks the drop might also be related to the time it takes so many postcards to arrive at their destinations...
Would you prefer to recieve this or a picture message?
ITV said the surge in internet use over the last decade means that more people than ever now live their lives through email and the web. This factor, the broadcaster’s spokesman said, will ultimately lead to the death of the postcard.
Ian Wallace, owner of renowned cheeky postcard publisher Bamforth, told Register Hardware that it sold up to 30m postcards annually between the 1950s and 1960s, but admitted that sales have slowed since.
“Technology isn’t to blame for the postcard's death. Things like mobile phones can be used as replacement postcards, sent over the phone networks instead of by post,” said Wallace.
COMMENTS
ewww
"Some 67 per cent admitted to going online to, say, send an email or upload photos while sunning themselves."
There must be some right pervs about if their taking real photos of fat ladies in swim wear and sending it back home to the relatives...
Umm, I see a positive outcome!
How about they just sell their designs as hi-res jpegs to some e-card companies or hell, make a special one, e-cards of great britain with whole sea-side sections which can be animated and sent with voice messages and all sorts.
The future can be whatever we want it to be. I hope saucy british postcards will always be available - however, I will still look down my nose at them and treat them with contempt.
I got yer friggin' gas lamps, right HERE...
I live in the "historic" (spit) Capitol Hill neighborhood of Washington, DC, full of houses a century-plus old, and there are more than a few of them that are restored to the "official" Historic Preservation Trust "standards" -- including gas lamps at the front doors where most of our houses here (even those extensively "fixed up") have long since replaced them with nice, clean, efficient, non-smelly electric front-door lamps.
Ever helpful
"Where are all the gas lamp manufacturers gone?
118118 couldn't put me in touch with any mud hut builders?
I can't find anyone who makes wooden stocks in yellow pages
And the only suits of armour I can get these days are made of plastic and come from party shops"
Number 3 should be easy if you trawl BDSM specialists. Bound to be some loony environmentalists who could set you up with 2 (wasn't there a story about someone building something similar in this very organ?) Similarly there's got to be some ren faire nuts who insist on the full sweaty experience of 4. 1 is the only one I can genuinely imagine not having any appeal to modern luddites/fantasists/weirdos, and I expect eBay and/or Google could probably set me straight if I could be bothered to look properly.
Ploo sa shanj, ploo say la mem shoes, whatever that means (fear my modern "relevant to employers' needs" education).
Maybe for the masses...
But i'm sure as any good techy knows that if you're going on holiday you have to be incommunicado....
Whatever *needs* doing right this ultimate second at work can wait until you get back, plus a week to get out of the holiday mood!
Whenever i get away, i turn my phone off too, no phone, no internet, no nothing, just pure silence.
