Facebook Inc. (FB) Testing Postcard Feature; Can This Monetize Mobile?

Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB) is notorious for its struggle to monetize its universality in social media. It has been working on several different angles, trying to find not only a way to bring in more revenue through the web site itself, but also to monetize its growing mobile presence in an exponentially expanding mobile market. But is the company about to mail it in?

Well, no – unless you mean mailing in a postcard.

Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB) is currently testing a “Mail a Postcard” feature with a small test group of Facebook users, in conjunction with Sincerely, maker of Postagram – a service that allows Instagram users to send their photos through snailmail. In this consolidation, Facebook users could turn a photo they see (their own or their friend’s private photos – not public ones or photos from pages) into a postcard – complete with a message on the back and a mailing address – they can send to their friend.

A test group of Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB) users will see a “Mail a Postcard” button at the bottom of a photo they’re viewing, and the company is testing several price points for the new service. Sincerely charges 99 cents for its Postagram service, so this Facebook service likely will be at or very near that price.

In a statement about the new service, Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB) stated, “A few months ago, some engineers built a fun feature that allows people to mail their Facebook photos as a physical postcard to any of their friends on Facebook. You can send your own photos to any of your friends or your friends’ photo to them. The front will be the photo and the back you can add a note for your friend, just like a normal postcard.”

There is no word yet about how long the test will run and if successful, when Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB) will roll out the service to all users. However, with this service seeming to be easily accessible for both laptop/tablet users and mobile/smartphone users, this could be one step toward establishing a revenue stream that Facebook desperately needs in the face of the ever-expanding mobile marketplace.

So yes, in a way, you could say Facebook is “mailing” it in.