A New, Old-Fashioned Spin on Social Media

Unfulfilled by Facebook and email exchanges? Tonic talks to the founder of Postcrossing, a website that lets users send and receive old-fashioned handwritten postcards with strangers — yielding new friendships, and even a marriage!

Katie Hocevar and Martine Muis are good friends. They share many of the same interests: going to indie rock concerts, finding shopping deals and trying new restaurants. They talk almost every day. They're planning a big summer: nights at the roller derby and a road trip to Niagara Falls. Only one thing comes between these two pals — about 4,000 miles.

For the last two years, Hocevar, a 26-year-old Pittsburgh, Pa. native and Muis, 24, who lives in Koedijk, Holland, have gotten to know each other through Postcrossing, a website that connects people through postcards. Through the free service, users send and receive postcards from other users across the globe. Hocevar met Muis through the site two years ago. Since then, the two correspond regularly through letters, Internet chat, and Skype. This summer, Muis is visiting Hocevar for eleven days. "In some ways we know each other intimately, and other ways we're nearly strangers," says Hocevar.

Bringing together complete strangers through postcards is the brainchild of Paulo Magalhaes (above right), Postcrossing's 29-year-old founder who started the site in 2005. "I always loved to receive mail — letters from distant friends or family, pen pals and, of course, postcards in particular," says the Portugal native.

Through Postcrossing, users sign up and receive addresses of other users in different countries. You send one, you receive one. Many users will also send cards back and forth from people they've already gotten cards from. Now, five years after the site launched, Postcrossing has 191,000 users from 211 different countries — from Britain to Bora Bora — who have sent 4.6 million cards.

Though Magalhaes estimates he owns a few thousand postcards, he says he never collected them just for the sake of collecting them. It's about people meeting other people, he says. Like Hocevar, Magalhaes says he's made too many new friends to count. Whenever he and his girlfriend (and site designer) Ana Campos travel to a new country, they're always meeting Postcrossers they've personally corresponded with, or are always hanging out with users who have formed Meetup groups.

Besides new friendships, Magalhaes says languages have been learned through the correspondences — and some have even found love. Two Postcrossers (one from Australia and one from Finland) met and married because of the site. "The connection between the two persons through the postcard is what counts the most for me," Magalhaes explains.

He notes that there is something personal about postcards that lends itself to human connection. "Email is great. It's cheap. It's instant. It's a fantastic communication tool. But still, it will never be as personal and interesting as a postcard received in your mailbox," he says. "Plus, who would tape an email on the fridge door at home? Postcards are much more meaningful. They tell a story, both about the sender as well as the place they come from. They're much more intimate, and technology can't reach that."

Through these friendships, Postcrossing has also helped educate users — formally and informally. Magalhaes has used to the site to raise awareness about lupus, to help schools teach kids about geography and has even collected donations through the site for recovery efforts after the Sichuan earthquake in China.

Magalhaes says other Postcrossers have taught him lessons about everything from the environment (a penpal from Tuvalu, an island situated midway between Australia and Hawaii, opened Magalhaes' eyes to the threat of rising sea levels) to local "sports" (try Google-ing "rabbit-hopping," he says. "You'll be amazed what the Danish — and Swedish too, apparently — can train a rabbit to do.").

Hocevar says she's used Postcrossing to broaden her horizons, too. She's asked an Indian pen pal about what foods she should try at a local restaurant and has received a box of exotic teas from a Postcrosser in Turkey. She also started a book club with 15 girls she met through the site. "We recently read a book that takes place in Barcelona, and one of our group members, a Spanish girl, went to Barcelona and took photos for us of some places that occur in the book," she says.

But Hocevar's connections through Posstcrossing haven't always been so far-flung. She has met six other Pittsburgh Postcrossers who get together to exchange stories about their shared passion.

Magalhaes revels in the fact that his passion is now shared by others. "The connection of two random people around the world through a postcard is somewhat magical to me," Magalhaes says. "Someone choose, bought, wrote, stamped and posted that postcard, which then traveled probably across oceans through several hands until your postman dropped it into your mailbox."

Magalhaes and Campos have many of their postcards displayed in their apartment in Slovenia, their latest home after forays in Shanghai, Boulder, Colorado and the Netherlands. He says he still loves the idea of meeting new people through the site, but when asked to name his favorite postcard of all? "The first Postcrossing postcard ever sent," he says of the card pictured above right. "It was sent from me to Ana."

Photos by Paulo Magalhaes.