Postalz
Postcards on a canvas. 2006.
In 2006 we built Postalz: a platform to make your own postcards on a canvas, and send them to anyone, anywhere. Choose a picture, place your words on it, and post.
It started life as Zimoz, was pitched as Postalz, and grew into Superscrap, Orkut’s number one app for almost two years. It was way ahead of its time. It worked like the Canva of today, and in some ways it was Instagram before Instagram: friends around the world swapped cards, and talked back in pictures.
Co-inventors: Sandip, Rajeev, Amit, Rajesh
From Zimoz to Superscrap
01
Zimoz
The first build, and the name that stuck around while we got it working: postcards made on a canvas, in the browser.
02
Postalz
What we pitched it as, for all practical purposes, in the early days: your own postcards, designed in minutes and sent to anyone, anywhere.
03
Superscrap
The same idea as an app on Orkut, the social network of the day. It became Orkut’s number one app and stayed there for almost two years.
Superscrap: Orkut’s number one app, for almost two years.
Way ahead of its time
A canvas for everyone
Pick a picture, add words in any font, any colour, anywhere on it: a designed postcard in minutes, with no design skills. The idea Canva later made universal.
Pictures that talk back
A reply was not a separate message. The person who received a card could open the original, add their own pictures and words on it, and send it back: a conversation in pictures, shared with a circle of friends. The heart of what Instagram became.
Kisses, placed anywhere
You could place a kiss right on a postcard, on any spot of a photo. Many cards carry those kisses on their pictures: spatial commenting, long before anyone called it that.
Visual memes
Tagging friends to answer a visual question on a postcard, from favourite places to the 7 Ps: a meme culture on a canvas, before the word went mainstream.
From my postcard blog, 2007
“Finally… I could make a real postcard, online.”
“The beauty of a postcard is that you can express so much, using so few words.”
“The fun element comes when your friends reply on your postcards, by modifying the postcard you send.”
“All my thoughts fit in these small postcards.”
148 postcards, 2007–08
Made, sent and received by friends from Montreal to Warsaw, California to the Dominican Republic. Moods, birthdays, memories, memes, replies and kisses. Hover or tap a card for its story.
The postcards come from my blog “Postcards from Sandip” (2007–08). More of the Postalz story is on its way.