Hacker News Reader

This is an interesting concept. I wonder what other physical processes could do with an API?

Potentially, you could buy a digital printer and create an API for physical mail. It could effectively change the direct marketing industry.

Do you mean a fax machine?

I think he means where you send HTML (or a PDF) to a web service that does a mail merge, prints & bulk mails it for you. I had exactly the same thought as a logical next step when I saw this.

Think of a print on demand web service for sending physical mail. You might even be able to do things like print it near the destination to take advantage of lower shipping rates.

I agree, there's lots in the online/offline chasm that could be filled

Reply on news.ycombinator.com