Google Maps envelopes

How cool is this Google Maps envelope idea from Rahul Mahtani & Yofred Moik from the Industrial Design program at Syracuse University?? Via not martha.

Their full design idea is for this to be built into Gmail so that you could have the option to convert an email into a physical letter, mailed by the USPS, but you could also print out a map image on a regular piece of paper and use something like this 8.5x11" envelope template to cut out and create your own envelopes more.

Cons:

• seems like it could easily become a lot of work for something people will toss aside quickly (hopefully into their recycling bins, at least)
• would there be any easy way to also put the location of our venue on the envelope as well? Does that even make sense as something to do? Or just a big X - we're getting married here!! Or have a mini-maps image on the card inside to indicate the location? Which would then almost be like, yes, we've thought about it long and hard and we'd like the theme of our wedding to be Google apps: Google maps, separate wedding Gmail account, wedding website built with Google sites, RSVP forms using Google spreadsheets...I could go on for ages (I am only half-, perhaps one third-joking)

Pros:

• it thrills my nerdy sense of awesome
• even Dan allowed himself to think it was really cool for several minutes before the 'seems like too much work' voice chimed in. And even then, once I told him we could put him in charge of data entry and I would recruit help for the cutting and folding, he seemed like he'd be ok with it. [Dan asks me to clarify that he's just in touch with his lack of crafty skill but can make up for it with his skill with maps.]
• hopefully people would feel more acutely how it's a small event that we'd really love their presence at, what with the time we've taken to personalize their invite? OK I think this is where non-wedding blog readers would mostly be like, in the real world people pay far, far less attention to these kinds of little things than you think they might (countering the slightly hysterical WIC mantra of "your invitations set the TONE!!!")

On a slightly different note, quick tip picked up from Nothing But Bonfires today: the $35 Xyron machine that can turn items printer on normal printer paper into a label/sticker, like so:

(note she also used a special corner-rounder thing)

Maybe this could be combined with the above idea where instead of folding envelopes from maps you just convert a map screenshot into a sticker.