A Post on Post Cards

Are post cards the dinosaurs of the communications world? Or are they actually one of the most effective forms of reaching someone?

With the advent of the telephone, then faxes, then e-mail, and now social networking sites, text messaging, and more, it would be fair to surmise that the post card is a form of communications past. But perhaps that's not so.

An article in the Chicago Tribune discusses the status of the humble post card in the midst of lightning fast and efficient communication tools that we have gotten used to over the years. While we could zap an instant message to a friend across country and get a response as quick as he or she can type and send back, there's a missing tangibility and ghostlike quality to that message. But a post card has a creative, contextually-meaningful, and friendly quality to it that keeps it relevant and widely used in today's tech-savvy society. Indeed, I'm not the only one to think this as there were over 2.3 billion post cards sent from U.S. households last year, and another 4 billion sent from U.S. businesses as part of direct mail advertising campaigns.

So despite the added cost and time involved to send a post card, people still relish the ability to communicate with a person in this decidedly "old school" way.

Maybe these "dinosaurs" truly do continue to roam the Earth after all...