Student designers Rahul Mahtani & Yofred Moik from the Industrial Design program at Syracuse University came up with an interesting mashup. The concept is that one could write a note in Gmail, then click to have it snailmailed for a small fee. The paper envelope for the mail would be printed up with route directions from Google Maps.
Google Maps Snailmail by Rahul Mahtani and Yofred Moik
I think the concept flies a bit in the face of the trends away from print media, but there’s something compelling about the idea all the same. I like the envelopes with destination/route map images printed on them, even though I think the actual route information would be of minor-to-no-use for delivery men. And, I think there’d definitely be some market for sending snailmail notes from the Gmail interface.
