Postcrossing is an online project website, on which people can exchange postcards with other people all over the world. Their slogan is “Send a postcard and receive a postcard back from a random person somewhere in the world!”
And following I will explain how the website works. If a postcrosser A wants to send out a postcard, he clicks the “Send a Postcard” and then will get a Postcard ID and an address of a randomly picked Postcrosser B via email. Also the profile of B will be sent to offer some ideas for A what type of postcard would be liked by B, for instance, B’s hobbies and preferences of the postcards(not demands).
And in the meanwhile, A will also be randomly picked by another user C, but A will not be informed about it. So A will receive a postcard unexpectedly from someone she never knew before. The feelings of expecting and surprising keep people involved in the exchange of postcards. After A receives that, he needs to “Register a Postcard” with the Postcard ID on it, and then A could upload the photo of the card and also write comments or message to C.
Postcrossing tries to keep a balance of sending and receiving, so there is a limit of the number of travelling postcards. As you exchange more postcards, the limit will be looser.
Postcrossing sends emails to you regularly about your monthly and yearly statistics, like how many cards you sent, from what countries you have received cards etc. You could also see a map of where postcards are from and to. It is like a journal to record the trips of your postcards.
Above is my profile page. I joined Postcrossing three years ago, having sent 40 and received 39(all of them happened three years ago also). Now I reactive my account and will start exchanging with others again! Hope I will still receive postcards from the Netherlands!=)
