As we approach the holiday season, San Francisco startup Doorman has been getting a lot of attention from the press — after all, by delivering packages when you’re actually home, rather than when it’s convenient for the delivery service, Doorman should reduce the risk that your gifts will get stolen while they’re sitting on your doorstep.
I was actually quoted in an ABC segment about Doorman — not that I’m particularly knowledgeable about the industry, but I am willing to blather about it on camera. Most of the coverage, however, has failed to mention a cool new service called Doorman Blade.
We’ve written previously about how, despite hype from Amazon and Google, urban drone delivery probably won’t become a reality anytime soon. As you can see in the video above, Doorman has beaten those bigger players to the punch — not with advanced technology, but simply by slapping a propeller hat on a delivery guy and calling it a drone.
Now, you might be thinking that this is just a goofy publicity stunt, and, well, that’s completely accurate. But hey, it’s Thanksgiving, and rather than give you real news, I figured I’d try to make you laugh.
On a slightly more serious note, I should probably point out that at the moment, Doorman is only available in San Francisco. (A similar service called Parcel has launched in New York.) Oh, and the Doorman team wants me to tell you that it’s releasing an Android app next week, and that it’s working to add features like instant delivery and package return scheduling.