Stamps.com

Stamps.com

Stamps.com is a Los Angeles, California-based company that provides Internet-based mailing and shipping services. Stamps.com is a public company and trades on the Nasdaq exchange under the symbol STMP.

History

In April 13, 1998, the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) and the E-Stamp Corporation unveiled for beta testing the E-Stamp Internet postage system, aimed at providing digitally encoded postage franks or stamps via the Internet. At the launch in 1998, the Postmaster General at that time, Marvin T. Runyon, described his vision of postage being "available, on call, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week."

E-Stamp was the first company to get USPS approval for beta testing and successfully brought internet postage to market, but the company did not survive the bursting of the dot-com bubble in 2000. In 2001 its domain and patents were bought by a fellow early entrant in the digital postage market, Stamps.com.

In the fall of 2003, Microsoft released a beta version of its office productivity suite of programs, which includes an electronic postage capacity through Stamps.com.

In August 2004, Stamps.com introduced PhotoStamps. This service allows computer users to upload their own photos or graphics, which Stamps.com then prints on custom postage stamps. This had been preceded by Stamps.com having various pictures on its E-stamps, including U.S. presidents Jefferson, Kennedy, Lincoln, TR and Washington, people playing various sports, and world landmarks. [ [http://www.pnc3.com/cvp/netstamps.htm Craig Selig NetStamps] ]

There was considerable negative publicity immediately after the inception of PhotoStamps, when investigative website The Smoking Gun publicized various stamp designs they had successfully ordered featuring images of Jimmy Hoffa, spies Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, and the DNA-stained blue dress of Monica Lewinsky. [cite web|url=http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0831041_photostamps_1.html|publisher=SmokingGun.com|title=Stamps Of Approval: Rosenbergs, Milosevic, Lewinsky dress now on official U.S. postage|date=August 31, 2004|accessdate=2008-06-08] Stamps.com's current policy prohibits images of world leaders or "any material that is vintage in appearance or depicts images from an older era." [http://photo.stamps.com/Store/conditions/]

Competitors

Stamps.com's main competitors are Pitney Bowes and Endicia Internet Postage.

References

* [http://www.socaltech.com/fullstory/0001406.html Interview with Jim McDermott, co-founder of Stamps.com]

External links

* [http://www.stamps.com Stamps.com main page]
* [http://photo.stamps.com PhotoStamps]


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