Stamps get personal

A new service lets you put what you want on your stamps.
NEW YORK (AP) -- America's first postage stamps appeared in 1847 -- rough, unperforated squares of ink and paper that depicted George Washington and Benjamin Franklin.
Over the next 157 years, hundreds of American luminaries, landscapes and milestones have appeared inside the small canvas that we stick onto the envelope's corner: Lincoln. Daniel Webster. The Statue of Liberty. The moon missions. Pocahontas. Cape Hatteras. Your dog.
Your dog?
Yep. Your dog. And your new baby, your grandfather, your car, your floral arrangement, your Chevy truck, even your bathroom sink if that's what floats your postal boat.
Thanks to a new test program by a firm called Stamps.com, any picture uploaded from your computer -- well, almost any picture -- can, for $16.99, become a sheet of made-to-order postage stamps that can be used on any envelope.
Successful so far
Initial reports indicate success: In the first three weeks since the test program debuted Aug. 10, the company has taken orders for 40,000 sheets -- 800,000 new stamps.
"It's created a new way for people to express themselves," says Ken McBride, Stamps.com's CEO.
That's 21st-Century Modern Marketing Principle No. 1: In today's buyer-driven, niche-marketed-to-the-nth-degree world, customization reigns.
But as the cult of individuality steers the marketplace, a pivotal question arises: In a world of products, is there a role for national consciousness?
"It's saying, 'postage is about me' rather than some national notion," says Roy Rosenzweig, director of the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University.
"Part of the point of stamps was to tell us who we are," Rosenzweig says. Photostamps, though, represent "a symbol of some wider set of changes that are already out there -- people identifying with smaller groups, with marketplaces instead of countries."
New rarities?
What of stamp collectors? Would self-generated postage create new rarities daily -- or would it be as valueless as paper from an ink-jet printer? "We don't expect these ever to become collectible because there are infinite varieties and infinite options," says Allison Gallaway, a spokeswoman for the Smithsonian Institution's National Postal Museum.
Can you put your own portrait of Washington or Lincoln -- or Kerry or Bush -- on a stamp? Nope, says McBride. What about a photo of a real stamp, say a really valuable one? Another no. Anything "objectionable" is forbidden.
What about living celebrities instead of dead presidents? Could there be a J.Lo stamp? Use of public figures' images and copyrighted stuff isn't kosher, so that would happen only if Jennifer Lopez wanted to order one -- "or," adds McBride, "Jennifer Lopez's agent." In fact, he says, some celebrities are asking if they can create stamps that fans could buy online (he's not saying who).
Projected mail use
Last year, a commission appointed to chart the Postal Service's future projected that mail use would fall from 202.2 billion pieces in 2003 to 181.7 billion by 2017. Personalization, it said, could help avert that.
"Individuals could have the option to print a stamp with a family photo or a small business could print stamps with the company logo," the report said. "Personalized stamps will enable commercial mailers to use their mail pieces as advertising media."
Gerry McKiernan, a Postal Service spokesman, says the pilot program runs until Sept. 30, then will be judged on criteria he declined to discuss. "We really want to stay away from any comment until we get the test concluded so we can evaluate the results," McKiernan says.