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Western Union Ends Telegram Services
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."
Just like voice and proximity have something over email, there's a kind of concretion in the physical missal.
Telegram Services STOP.
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..."
Dear Western Union, stop. Would you please, please, stop.
Now how are we supposed to coordinate the counter attack against the aliens?
I can see there being very reduced demand, but some demand still. Probably just not enough to justify the investment.
I sent a telegram once. I was a kiddie in the Army, and I'd just left advanced training. I was on leave prior to going to Germany. Because I live in Michigan and a buddy going on the same plane lived in Ohio on the way to the airport in Pittsburg, we'd agreed to meet at his house so I could tag along. I broke my leg, though, and couldn't make the flight. I got everything straightened out with the Army, but not with my buddy, who didn't have a telephone (and wouldn't, I imagine, have internet access today). Of course I had his address, so the only way I could get a hold of him was via a Western Union telegram.
I guess these days you could send flowers with "call me" just as fast as a telegram. Or hire one of the dancing monkey-suit people or a clown to sing a song about not being able to make the plane.
I think there's still a demand today to be met, and possibly it can be done with a reduced infrastructure. Not everyone has internet access, and even so, as things are today you have to check the internet; it doesn't notify you. Heck, even *I* don't have a home telephone.
--Jim (me)
Western union may have ended thier telegram service, but radio telegrams are still alive and well. Amateur radio service still uses RTs in emergency communications. The art of "traffic handling" as it's called is still encouraged by the ARRL. Here's a document that explains proper formatting of a radio telgram.
There is no reasonable defense against an idiot with an agenda
:wq
I had need to send somebody this month and they requested that I use Western Union. I was so surprised. Online it would have cost me a C$40 service fee and it appears that it would have done a cash advance on my credit card. I went to an office and it cost a flat rate of C$20 and I used by debit card. Still a ripoff if you ask me. But I looked around and could find and alternatives for non-Internet savvy people on the receiving end. The guy got the money.
"...factors such as long distance telephone..."
Another example of how modern technology is undermining core business plans. You'd think they would've seen the writing on the wall... in, oh lets say, 1875?
Two things: First, the telegraph was the first binary "digital" device. It communicated information using dots and dashes.
Second, I last sent a telegram about six years ago when a friend of mine finished up her PhD. Western Union knocked on the door of her victory party and hand delivered it. She was flabbergasted, had never gotten one before, and none of her friends had ever seen one. She still has it in a frame. I don't know of anybody that's got any bit of email I've ever sent them in a frame.
Retro-Gram provides the style and class of vintage telegrams with the speed and convenience of e-mail. Their free service will format your message as PDF in any of a half dozen vintage telegram formats and send it by email. For a fee, they will print your Retro-Gram and send it by snail mail.
I don't know if this service is being discontinued as well, but Western Union used to offer the ability for a person to type in a message, and have it hand-delivered to his Congressperson. It was fairly expensive, but I'm told reasonably popular when you really wanted to make a statement.
Given that I can't find any information about it on their site anymore, I'm going to guess it's been discontinued.
Probably given that most politicians are less adverse to email now than they used to be (particularly with the new post-9/11 and post-anthrax security precautions), the demand for it didn't exist anymore. But until recently, it was widely believed -- and perhaps is still true -- that sending your opinion by email just didn't give it the impact that a piece of paper did; especially a piece of paper that everyone knew you spent quite a bit of money sending, like a telegram.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
I've sent several telegrams over the last few years... it's a great way to acknowledge a special event (birthday, anniversary, whatever) on short notice, it gets hand-delivered, it's not as corny as most greeting cards, it's relatively inexpensive, it shows some effort, and, most importantly, it's relatively unique these days.
I'll miss having that option, as I always got responses like "wow, that's so cool-- I'd never gotten a telegram before!"
Hopefully, someone else will pick it up, acknowledging its novelty value and marketing it effectively as such, but Western Union really had the old-school image that made it especially attractive for me.
Don't worry- Western Union still handles the kind of transmissions that Congressmen pay attention to.