When I get a letter addressed to 914 instead of 918, I know which house it's supposed to go to. No effort required after step one: address envelope.
It'd be easy enough to hand out your address as a url, "just whois me." But to ask the postal systems of every single country on earth to do the translation for you is over the top (steps two through n). Put the onus on the user (sender) to do the google.com == 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway translation.
I could imagine the post office put a sticker on the envelope with the real address. This guarantees a correct address (as long as the whois info is correct).
Of course, have to see if it is practical or not.
There is a service in Belgium that if you move house you can pay the postal service a small fee (20EUR) and they will forward mail sent to your old address to your new address over a 6 month period. When they do this they simply put a sticker over the incorrect address.
I am guessing this is autmated and is a similar problem as my proposition.
Comments
Agreed, it's a last mile problem.
When I get a letter addressed to 914 instead of 918, I know which house it's supposed to go to. No effort required after step one: address envelope.
It'd be easy enough to hand out your address as a url, "just whois me." But to ask the postal systems of every single country on earth to do the translation for you is over the top (steps two through n). Put the onus on the user (sender) to do the google.com == 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway translation.
(I smell a weekend webapp)
I could imagine the post office put a sticker on the envelope with the real address. This guarantees a correct address (as long as the whois info is correct).
Of course, have to see if it is practical or not.
There is a service in Belgium that if you move house you can pay the postal service a small fee (20EUR) and they will forward mail sent to your old address to your new address over a 6 month period. When they do this they simply put a sticker over the incorrect address.
I am guessing this is autmated and is a similar problem as my proposition.