ShowHN: an easy way to track your packages

But I know when they arrived... I signed for them.<p>A more useful service would allow me to log in and see the current status and location of each package I've notified it about. I've had as many as 10-15 packages in transit at once before and it became tedious to make sure I got all of them. (In fact, one got lost, and I didn't notice for another month.)

(OT, but...) What I can't understand is: why can't FedEx/UPS tell me approximately when they'll deliver my package? Or send me an SMS say, 15 minutes before the scheduled stop, so I know when to expect them? Surely the drivers are not following a stochastic pattern and performing a random walk through the streets?

Very cool. However, I don't see anything on the page that explains what I'm getting myself in to from a privacy perspective. Based on most spam laws, once I email you, we're engaged in business, so you could take liberties with that and start sending me email. This looks like a neat service, so maybe I'm ok with that, but I'd like to know up front.

Thoughts:<p>Really like the 'mail to track' interface. Great way to get tracking numbers into the sytem.<p>I use Delivery Status by Junecloud to track packages. I have to copypasta to get them in; but then it sends me a Growl every time my package's status changes, and I can hit the Dashboard to see where my stuff is and when the estimated delivery date is.<p>I would need a similar level of functionality; getting an email when the package is actually delivered won't cut it. Something that had a Dashboard/Growl client and an iOS notification client, though: that I'd switch to in a heartbeat.

really interesting. One comment on the UX. Since there are no clickable buttons/links I thought this was just a coming soon page.<p>Create a button that says 'track now' or some other call to action.<p>Once I read the middle paragraph I understood how it works but I bet most people will never piece that together.<p>and yes, package tracking would also be good. Have a look at Dominos pizza order tracker. Something as easy as that would be fun and engaging.

FWIW, I use <a href="http://twitter.com/TrackThis" rel="nofollow">http://twitter.com/TrackThis</a>. You just have to follow them (they don't post anything, so no stream spam) and send them a dm w/ the tracking number. They send you a dm whenever there is an update to your package location while it's traveling.

Seems like a really neat service. In the XforY tradition, a TripIt for your Amazon orders.<p>One quick layout suggestion: Your #content div is currently set to 914px, and on Firefox, that's dropping Step 3 to a lower line. If you increase that to 915px, it lifts up to be on the same line as the first 2 steps.

If you're getting into tracking multiple packages, Delivery Status does a very good job of this: <a href="http://junecloud.com/software/iphone/delivery-status-touch.html" rel="nofollow">http://junecloud.com/software/iphone/delivery-status-touch.h...</a> -- although it's not a webapp.

Great idea. It'd be fun if I could either login or get a link mailed to me of a Google Map overlaid with all of my current shipments, annotated with data about them.<p>Definitely like the simple nature of your app though. Signing up is as easy as adding you to the address book.

Looks good. There are two things I'd suggest:<p>(1) gmail oauth integration: instead of having people forward tracking numbers to you, you can read their mail for them.<p>(2) If you can collect just a bit more data (destination address), you should be able to construct some useful statistical models predicting when packages show up at my address as a function of delivery service, day of week, season.

love it :) Great job! What &#38; How would you earn bucks out of it?

Cool. How will you monetize? There should be gmail apps that allow you to plugin directly... the main problem is setting this thing up.