Postcrossing
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Postcrossing | |
|---|---|
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| URL | http://www.postcrossing.com |
| Type of site | Project Website |
| Registration | Yes |
| Available language(s) | English |
| Owner | Paulo Magalhães |
| Created by | Paulo Magalhães |
| Launched | 2004 |
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.
As of March 12, 2008, there were 44,762 members from 178 countries. 946,805 postcards have been received because of this project and 41,000 are currently traveling. In total, Postcrossing's postcards have travelled 5,166,010,155 km or 128,908 laps around the world. [1] Maps generated of the site's general activity reveal higher concentrations of users in Europe and North America than in other areas, with the United States, Finland and Germany being the only countries to have broken the 100,000 postcards sent barrier.[2], [3]
On Friday the 15th of February 2008, the site launched a new look interface, with added features popularly known among the community as "Version 2".
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[edit] Statistics
Postcrossing provides a number of statistics as well as various mapping options. According to site statistics [4], more than four times more females are registered than males.
[edit] Distribution of Members
| Country | Members (27 Dec 07) | Sent postcards (27 Dec 07) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | Finland | 6906 | 214108 |
| 2. | United States | 6249 | 120038 |
| 3. | Germany | 3772 | 106719 |
| 4. | Netherlands | 1560 | 57114 |
| 5. | Brazil | 1559 | 19402 |
| 6. | Portugal | 1301 | 33164 |
| 7. | China | 1249 | 5568 |
| 8. | United Kingdom | 1118 | 24161 |
| 9. | Japan | 957 | 20365 |
| 10. | Turkey | 926 | 4596 |
| 11. | Canada | 799 | 18396 |
| 12. | Russia | 726 | 9834 |
| 13. | France | 697 | 17429 |
| 14. | Thailand | 678 | 3489 |
| 15. | Estonia | 655 | 14438 |
| 16. | Australia | 639 | 13720 |
| 17. | Taiwan | 555 | 4550 |
| 18. | Spain | 499 | 13967 |
| 19. | Singapore | 437 | 5845 |
| 20. | New Zealand | 430 | 13732 |
| 21. | Belgium | 430 | 10823 |
| 22. | Czech Republic | 384 | 6435 |
| 23. | Italy | 383 | 10000 |
| 24. | Austria | 343 | 11897 |
| 25. | Poland | 334 | 5774 |
| 26. | Lithuania | 331 | 3445 |
| 27. | Malaysia | 315 | 4616 |
| 28. | Switzerland | 310 | 8279 |
| 29. | Hungary | 299 | 6510 |
| 30. | Norway | 260 | 6479 |
[edit] 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.
[edit] 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 and postcard swaps. There is also an off topic section for threads not related to Postcrossing.
[edit] 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. Bingos are location specific. For example, when playing a 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.
