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An Original Way to Go Postal

Every year, the U.S. Postal Service receives 40,000 submissions for new stamp images and releases about 35 of them. But now, thanks to PhotoStamps, a trial service from Stamps.com formally announced Tuesday, the number of new stamps hitting envelopes nationwide could become nearly infinite.

PhotoStamps allows anyone to design their own image and emblazon a stamp with it. Thus, be prepared to see a wave of stamps with babies, cats, weddings and other personalized images and logos arriving in a mailbox near you.

According to Ken McBride, CEO of Stamps.com, the company launched PhotoStamps about a week ago and has been receiving submissions ever since.

"The majority of stuff that's coming in is exactly what we intended," McBride said. "Pictures of babies is No. 1. Pictures of families or babies make up about two-thirds of what's come in."

In order to get a personalized set of stamps, a user has to create an image using a digital photograph or logo, then submit it to Stamps.com for approval. If approval is granted, Stamps.com then sends the stamps to the consumer. It charges about twice as much as the stamps' face value for the service.

To be approved, submissions must fit within certain guidelines.

"We're dealing with the premier product of the U.S. Postal Service, which is stamps," said USPS spokesman Gerry McKiernan. "We have to look at it from the kinds of images that people will put on them, the propriety of them and what's allowable in polite society."

McBride said Stamps.com would turn down any submission with nudity, violent images or intellectual property not owned by the submitter.

"We don't really accept anything that as a private company we'd consider objectionable or controversial," McBride said. That "would be nudity, violence, racism, sexism -- the standard list of things, not anything rude or obscene."

For five years, Stamps.com has been selling a service that allowed people to print stamps at home. Since then, using technology that imprints each stamp with a unique bar code, the company has sold more than 250 million stamps.

Last summer, President Bush's Commission on the U.S. Postal Service recommended that the Postal Service pursue some form of personalized postage, said McBride. Shortly afterward, Stamps.com put in a proposal and quickly got authorization to move ahead.

Now, Stamps.com has three months to try to convince the government that the service can work, said McKiernan.

"I don't want to raise anybody's hopes that these kinds of personalized stamps will be available for Christmas," he said. "I'm sure (the postmaster general) will want everyone to have a good look at this because it will mean a measurable change in how we do things."

Still, McBride is confident that customers will flock to the service and that they will behave themselves.

One avenue the company would certainly benefit from would be small or medium-sized businesses placing bulk orders for stamps with their logos on them, and such customers have already materialized.

But for anyone wanting to submit a logo or, for that matter, any image, Stamps.com forces customers to agree to terms of service that require asserting ownership of the image or design in question.

Because Stamps.com has for years enabled customers to print their own stamps, some may wonder if the same option will be available for the PhotoStamps service. McBride said that because the personalized stamps have to be vetted, customers shouldn't hold their breath.

"At this point, that's probably not going to work," he said. But "it makes sense. The prevalence of digital cameras and inkjet printers makes that an interesting application."

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By Daniel Terdiman
02:00 AM Aug. 11, 2004 PT

[original article]

Posted by thinkum at August 13, 2004 02:55 PM