The sun is shining, we've had bucket-loads of ice-cream and this year's sunglasses have been christened.

Just in time for summer, we've made it to the number two slot in Photography on iTunes in Luxembourg, Switzerland and Malta. 

I'm sure that there's a limerick here somewhere.

But this one's only got four lines. Hmm.

When Christmas Day left-overs are finished and the wrapping paper is put away, it’s time for the little ones (and maybe you too) to start thinking about sending some ‘’Thank you’’ cards for all the wonderful presents.

From time to time we use photographs from various sources under the Creative Commons licence. We'd like to acknowledge the people whose photos we've used (and thank them for being such great and generous photographers). Thank you!

• Evil Erin's photostream
• endbradley's photostream
• Tony Armstrong's photostream
• Laris.Sa*'s photostream
• Sam Felder's photostream
• endbradley's photostream
• Zieak’s photostream
• philcampbell's photostream
• Jacob Davies' photostream
• _Shward_'s photostream
• versageek's photostream
• juhansonin's photostream
• snorp's photostream
• mrplough's photostream
• {just jennifer}'s photostream
• dpstyles™'s photostream
• popofatticus' photostream
• The Big Quack's photostream
• anna gutermuth's photostream
• KimberlyZ's photostream
• jenniferlstoddart's photostream
• terren in Virginia's photostream
• Hunter!'s photostream
• vvvracer's photostream
• ciamabue's photostream
• orchidgalore's photostream
• Nieve44/La Luz's photostream
• Duncan~'s photostream
• aussiegall's photostream
• Garuna bor-bor's photostream
• blair_25's photostream
• Scott Hudson **'s photostream
• Anderson Mancini's photostream
• antaean's photostream
• Juliana Coutinho
• kelsey_lovefusionphoto
• Liamfm
• calleecakes
• bonho1962

We spent a lot of time over summer year talking to many of you. Postcard senders from all over the world - German mothers, English-early retirees, New York hipsters, Australian photo junkies and many more. 

You gave us a huge amount of input - some specific feedback about how to improve the experience, and some really telling comments on why you send postcards. Today we're very proud to announce the launch of a new service called Hugmail that addresses one of the biggest reasons to use this service - sending messages to family that doesn't live a digital life.

Hugmail - making it easier for us to stay in touch with our Grandparents. For us - who live and breath digital everyday (err, including you who are reading this blog!) - we all really should spend more time with our grandparents, saying "hi", asking them about their day. We know how much they value a phone call, a visit, a small present.

Hugmail is all about celebrating the little things that bring joy and happiness to people’s lives - we believe that postcards can play a central part in that.

Hugmail:

- Available today on web, iOS and Android

- Part of the Touchnote family of services - all helping you to manage your relationships better

When was the last time you showed one of your our older relatives that you care?

FAQs:

- Will Touchnote still continue?   
Hell yes. Touchnote will continue - and we're still obsessing about how to help you send the best photo postcards possible

- Will Hugmail be awesome?
Err, yes

- Why is the app not available outside the UK?
We've decided to kick off Hugmail in the UK only - it's all about our company ethos of focussing on only a few things, and absolutely doing everything we can to be absolutely the best at them. Hence, for now, Hugmail is focused on UK customers.

- Can I use my Touchnote credits on Hugmail?
You can't use your Touchnote credits with Hugmail, but we can transfer your credits for you. Just email us on help@touchnote.com. 

We're giving away lots of postcards just in time to help you celebrate the holidays!

Share a favourite Christmas photo (past or present) on our Facebook wall here and ask your friends to 'Like' them. The first 100 posters* will receive a free postcard and if your photo gets 4-or-more 'Likes' we will gift you another postcard.

Follow us on Twitter and keep sharing the following tweet for yet more chances to win postcards:

In the run up to New Year's Day we'll pick five winners at random every week from our Twitter stream and gift each of them a pack of five Touchnote postcards.

And don't forget you can send Touchnotes from your iPhone, iPad, or Android mobile as well as direct from the Web. Pick a photo, customise it, add your message then select recipients  and we'll take care of the rest. Share those special moments with friends and family who can't be with you: decorating the tree, wrapping presents, Christmas lunch, and use Touchnotes as the perfect way to send a "thank-you" for each and every gift. 

*Please note each entry must be from a unique Facebook user name.

Merry Christmas!

The Touchnote Team 

Apple (you might have heard of them) today announced that they have decided to follow Touchnote into the mobile postcards market. They also released a new phone.

New CEO of Apple, Tim Cook, wasn't available to talk to us, but we were able to get an exclusive, considered quote from co-founder Raam Thakrar of Touchnote:

“We know how important it is to print photos and share photos so that they can be treasured. It seems others are realising this, too. But, wow, their cards are pricey.”

In a more sober vein, it's hard to know how to react when a big player moves into your industry, some of our thoughts are:

- it's flattering and exciting to have your business validated

- it's also scary when that 'validation' is from Apple

- we’ve been doing this since 2008, having sent cards to over 200 countries and territories.

- when a big company gets involved in activities that aren't its core focus, there's no guarantee that they'll make a good job of it

- our print and delivery is second-to-none, despite our cards being half the price of Apple

- our iPhone app remains excellent (have you tried the latest version)?

- we're pre-installed on all major Sony Ericsson Android devices

- we love iPhones, but not everyone is on them. Touchnote also happen to have a most excellent Android app and a website

- we've got some fantastic new features on the way for all our apps (but they're very secret)

We're quietly optimistic about what the future holds for Touchnote. Even with Apple trying to take a bite.

Thousands of fabulously designed postcards pass our eager eyes each week, so we thought it was high time we shone a spotlight on some of apps out there that make your postcards look so damn good.

The following list showcases our pick of the 8 best iPhone camera apps to make the Touchnote loveliness that much more… well… lovely.

There were hissy fits and tantrums at Touchnote at the prospect of ranking these guys, we just couldn’t do it so here they are in alphabetical order. Presenting…

Touchnote’s Top 8 iPhone Camera Apps

Blendcam - If you want to get creative, try Blendcam for superimposing one photo on another, the perfect app for the indecisive among you who can’t quite pick the right pic. Now you can have both! FREE

Camera+ - For when you want to really impress Camera+ turbo-charges your iPhone camera with loads of cool features like exposure control and zoom. Makes would-be dull pics ever-so pretty. £0.69

Darkroom Pro – We all have that awesome pic we’d love to use… if only it wasn’t so shaky… Thankfully the good people at Darkroom Pro have created a very cool app that can get the best out of those low light situations. £0.99

Diptic - This is a neat little app that allows you to show off up to 4 great pics, perfect for sending holiday snaps. Diptic will make cool montages of your photos and Touchnote will centre them beautifully on a white background for a perfect postcard. Trust us – the results are terrific. £1.49

Instagram – If you prefer your postcards to be classic why not make your pics look classic. Instagram is one of the more popular iPhone camera apps, and it’s easy to see why. Gorgeous shots that really create sensational postcards. We likey. FREE

PhotoFunia – This app-veteran does exactly what it says on the tin. It literally throws a whole heap of fun at your photos. PhotoFunia are perfect for when you want add a splash of color and artistic flair to your postcard sending experience. FREE

WordFoto - A picture is worth a thousand words, so a picture made of words must be worth 2000. WordFoto literally mesh your gorgeous photos with whatever words you like. So now you not only can you have your message on the back of your postcard you can a few little words on the front too. Nice. £1.49

360 - Isn't it tough to capture a whole landscape with a single photo sometimes? Whilst there are a few of these panoramic apps floating around we really like 360. It creates beautiful panoramas to really show off those holiday snaps and make ever more lovely postcards. £0.69

If your favourite digital camera iPhone app isn’t covered, tell us in the comments section below.

As we hurtle towards the end of the (alleged) UK summer, we thought it would be an appropriate time to reflect on the season via the prism of Touchnote. We counted, we sorted and we tallied to produce the first ever Touchnote Postcard Poll. Specifically we looked at 2000 postcards over two weeks in August from UK, US and Germany… three of our most popular postcard destinations.

We have great pleasure - and a little bit of confusion - in releasing the results of the first ever Touchnote Postcard Poll. A snapshot of modern-day postcard sending if you like.

Rest assured that all results were aggregated and collated completely anonymously.

Drum roll please…

• 38% of UK postcard-senders sent images of their children vs. 29% from the US. Germans had 24% choosing photos of their children

• Americans proved to be the funniest with 15% of all those sending postcards displaying ‘funny’ or irreverent pictures, followed by the UK (9%) and Germany (8%)

• Germans proved the biggest romantics with 32% of all postcards sent featuring couples/romantic images, the US and UK were at 19% & 17% respectively

• Other interesting findings showed Brits beating Americans and Germans in a kiss-off, with UK sending ‘xx kisses’ in 45% of the postcards sent. Lagging way behind were the Americans and Germans (less than 1% each)

• Dogs were the most popular pet across all three of the countries surveyed.  Only 1% of total cards featured other pets or animals

Other findings include:

• Just 42% of postcards were actually sent while senders were on holiday

• Interestingly, only 15% of total images resembled the scenic postcard of the past

• Birthday and wedding images featured in 3% of all postcards

• A small percentage (0.2%) used postcards to share pictures of their pregnancy scans

We asked an expert in personal communications to take a look at the findings and here’s what she had to say:

“It’s heartening to see that with the preponderance of text messages and email, couples still show romance with a real note. That kids and pets are some of the most popular images isn’t surprising at all – those Kodak moments are still ones that we want to treasure. The poll has shown that the age-old desire to combine that photo with a message and a kiss is as alive and well – and that’s a good thing. And very interesting to see that Germans have really taken to expressing their love in modern ways,” said Carole Spiers, Author on Personal Communication & Stress Management and BBC Guest Broadcaster

Was great to see our German friends fare so well in the lurrrve stakes.. perhaps Touchnote has inadvertently facilitated the German romantic revolution? Hmmmm… maybe we’re reading too much into it.

What do you think? Are the results true to form or way off the mark? How would this have differed had we included other countries?

This is cool, and we're more than a little bit proud. Touchnote has been named as one of the top 50 innovators by the prestigious Mobile Entertainment publication.

We're in some pretty cool company - some of the UK's most impressive mobile talent has been showcased here, and we feel pretty humbled. And also pretty darned excited.

Well hello there Touchnoters!

As you may have noticed we’ve done a bit of spring cleaning of our website, right here on Touchnote.com

That’s right folks. We’ve streamlined, simplified and fluffed the cushions to make the whole Touchnote postcard sending experience on the interweb that much more comfortable for you.

Have a play and let us know what you think of the changes below… go on... make our day…