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Western Union Ends Telegram Services

Posted by samzenpus on from the first-my-8-tracks-now-this dept.

Snap E Tom writes "As of this past Friday, Western Union has stopped sending telegrams. The article cites factors such as long distance telephone and faxes that contributed to its demise, but email was the final nail. My hunch is that modern USPS and overnight delivery services did the most damage, though."

2 of 223 comments (clear)

  1. I will miss the telegram. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I never, EVER received a spam/junk telegram. Ever. There's something kind of nice about a message transmission medium that has never been trashed.

    "FROM NIGERIA STOP OPPORTUNITY FOR MONEY STOP PLEASE HLP ME STOP..."

  2. Have you seen a telegram lately? by wandazulu · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I sent a telegram as a novelty to my girlfriend many years ago; what she got wasn't the yellowish paper adorned with logos and glued letters, but a dot matrix printout. It was about as unglamorous as you could get. Yes, it did say Western Union on it, but I wouldn't have been surprised if they hadn't already been using the internet to transmit it.

    All in all, it was truly a telegram in name only (had to pay, fill out a form, etc). It totally lacked any of the style or magic you may have expected.