Show HN: Turn your SMS into postcards for your grandma, every month
thesilverpost.comOP here.
Built this to solve my own problem: remembering to send updates to my across-country grandparents.
Instead of trying to teach them how to use instragram/facebook/twitter/snapchat to see my updates, I thought it would be easier to convert my digital updates into an experience they are already used to: mail.
Every month, the services sends an SMS reminder to reply with a picture or two + a caption. We then hand design the postcards and ship them to your recipient.
Though the product & designs are built for the elderly, we also have a few customers using it for other loved ones in their life.
While nothing beats picking up the phone to call my grandmother, I've noticed that sending monthly postcards makes it easier to contact her. I now have less guilt about being in touch with her so I have less anxiety about calling her. It also gives us topics to talk about—she asks me about the pictures I've sent her.
Is it easy to send Facebook images from a SMS app? (I don't know, FB is not installed on my phone)
Images I post to social media are already on my phone, so I just use that. However I think most mobile apps allow you to 'share' photos with a phone number via SMS.
Not unless they are on your phone, but create a Facebook chat bot as an opinion in addition to SMS would be good idea.
This is one of those, "Why didn't I think of this idea" ideas.
Fun service
How much? I resist signing up just to see the fee. Edit, I see it's $5/month, somehow I missed that.