Electronic postcard

An electronic digital postcard is similar to a postcard or a greeting card, the main difference is that it is created using digital media , instead of paper or other traditional materials. E-cards are usually provided on various sites on the Internet , where they can be transmitted to the recipient by indicating his email address . Such cards are also considered more environmentally friendly (environmentally friendly), compared with conventional paper greeting cards.

Electronic cards is digital content , which makes them much more versatile than paper ones. For example, unlike traditional postcards, electronic ones can be easily sent to many people at the same time or personalized for the recipient. Such postcards can be saved on any computer or electronic device and even reviewed through the TV screen, as digital video cards began to appear

Typically, the sender of an electronic card selects a suitable postcard from an online catalog. By selecting a postcard, the sender can edit it to varying degrees by adding messages, photos or videos. Finally, the sender indicates the recipient’s email and the site sends an email to the recipient on behalf of the addressee.

Content

Printable E-Cards

Some electronic cards are designed for printing, instead of sending by email. However, most people do not consider such cards electronic, but they are perceived as ordinary, self-made, greeting cards. Their advantage, unlike traditional ones, is that they are cheaper and are made personally for the recipient. This is a great replacement for greeting with stamped postcards.

Technological Evolution

Since its inception in 1994 by Judith Donatom , the technology of electronic postcards has changed significantly. Only one technical aspect has remained unchanged - the sending mechanism: the e-mail received by the addressee does not contain the greeting card itself, but an individually encoded backlink to the site that reflects the greeting card chosen by the addressee.

Postcards and greeting cards

Like paper counterparts, postcards use visual art (static or animated images and videos) while leaving room for a personal note. These were the first electronic cards. Today, there are various types of electronic postcards. Some are decorated using fixed greetings, others make it possible to choose greetings (from the drop-down list or with other options for choosing greetings)

Flash Animation

This type of electronic postcard is based on two-dimensional vector animation, which is controlled using a scripting language. This format is owned by Adobe. However, the widespread use of software from Adobe allows this type of digital greeting card to be easily viewed on most modern computers. The recipient views the short animation, the duration of which is usually 15-30 seconds. Due to the nature of the content, the animation predominantly has a cartoon style, although some Flash creations can be quite complex and realistic. Animation is usually accompanied by a soundtrack that may contain speech or music.

Flash animated cards can be interactive, however, most Flash animated cards are designed to convey sender feelings through simple viewing.

Animated flash cards, which today offer almost all the major electronic cards publishers and, therefore, the most common format.

Video postcards

Video cards use a combination of personalized text and video to convey the message to the recipient. There are countless similar services, including Rattlebox, where the user selects and customizes text on pre-recorded video or DVCards.com, on which the user records his video using a webcam.

Mobile Cards

With the development of mobile technology, the Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS), which is actually a picture in SMS, has become more popular. Digital cards can also be sent to mobile devices and phones. Mobile cards or the so-called MCards are offered by various mobile content providers. Like electronic postcards, mobiles can contain multiple images, text messages, and music. Mobile cards are also considered cards sent using a mobile application.

One of the first companies to create MCards is the Dutch company Mgreetings (founded in 2003). Mobile cards can be sent from a PC as well as electronic cards. Users visiting the website can select a card and enter the recipient’s mobile phone number, and this card will be sent to the specified number in MMS.

Networked Multimedia E-Cards

Creating web cards, evolving, becomes more creative. The user can create a greeting card online by choosing the background, dragging pictures, animation, emoticons and typing text that looks like handwritten. Such cards may contain video and music.

Face E-Cards

Flash 10 technology now allows sites to develop custom applications that can upload photos, change them and cut their faces. The user can later embed them in the animation to obtain a significantly higher level of personalization.

Game Cards

Some digital postcards contain interactive games. Such games usually contain animation and music, like other animated maps. As well as a feature that allows the sender to add a private message.

History

The metaphor of digital postcards was used at the beginning of the World Wide Web . The first postcard site, The Electric Postcard, was created in late 1994 by Judith Donat at MIT Media Lab . Things started slowly: in the first weeks, 10-20 cards were sent per day, during the first summer 1,000 to 2,000 cards were sent per day, and then the turnover grew sharply. During the 1995-1996 Christmas season, there were days when more than 19,000 postcards were sent; By the end of spring 1996, a total of more than 1,700,000 postcards were sent. The source code of this service was made publicly available, provided that users shared the updates with each other. The Electric Postcard has received numerous awards, including the 1995 GNN Best of the Net Award.

MIT postcards remained the dominant and only documented electronic postcard service by the end of autumn 1995. In November 1995, Awesome Cyber Cards, also known as marlo.com (located on marlo.com until October 2010), began developing a greeting card on the Internet, a digital card on the Internet that includes a fixed or selected image and congratulations.

When the Internet Archive began to cover sites from all over the Internet in the fall of 1996, a repository of information on the development of electronic cards was created by preserving the history of the Internet, from that time and earlier temporary marks on the Internet pages that were recorded. The Awesome Cards web pages, launched November 10, 1996 and available on the Wayback Machine , showcase the development of digital postcards throughout 1996 and feature a collection of cards. Earlier in 1996, especially the festive collection of postcards, created a virtual timestamp for the development of electronic greeting cards, from valentines with a fixed greeting in February 1996, to cards with suggested greetings to choose from in the Thanksgiving collection.

By mid-1996, a large number of sites were offering electronic greetings. In mid-October 1996, The Awesome Cards developed and introduced electronic mail (“Email Express”) cards, based on the capabilities offered by the Netscape 3.0 browser. This was the first time that the electronic postcard itself could be sent directly by the sender to the recipient, without sending an email with a link to the postcards on the site.

Between September 1996 and Thanksgiving 1997, Blue Mountain, which produced paper cards, developed an electronic card on its website. The popularity of Blue Mountain quickly grew on the ability of visitors to create a postcard to send. Blue Mountain expanded even further when Microsoft promoted the service on its free Hotmail service. This interaction ended when Blue Mountain sued Microsoft in November 1998 for moving postcards for receiving postcards, from them and other electronic postcard companies, to the Hotmail user spam folder.

Until 1999, big capitals began to flow into the Internet, provoking a boom in the dotcoms . Among the sites with electronic postcards, Blue Mountain Arts was the leader. Their sales in October 1999 amounted to $ 780 million (which amounts to $ 71 per unique user per month). The deal was cited by CNN and Business 2.0 as evidence of a dot bubble . On September 13, 2001, three weeks before filing for bankruptcy on October 1, 2001, Excite @ Home sold BlueMountain .com to American Greetings for $ 35 million, or $ 3.23 per unique user per month. The BlueMountain .com site remains a large site, mainly focused on electronic postcards. In June 2008, JustAnotherDotCom.com purchased Greeting-cards.com, a free E-card site, and added it to their card site, making it the largest electronic card site in the world.

From the beginning, most electronic cards were free, often sponsored by ads. Although free cards remain the most common and popular, some sites charge a fee for all electronic cards or special premium cards. Others offer annual memberships that allow users to send postcards during the membership period.

Several non-profit organizations offer free postcards as a way to introduce the organization to another person. In 2006, SOS Children's Villages - USA began to offer various free electronic cards: birthday cards, thank you cards, Mother's Day.

Security

Sending an electronic postcard to a specific recipient directly takes into account the provision of the recipient's email address to the electronic card service, a third party. Like other services from third parties by e-mail (for example, a mailing company), the operator has the ability to abuse the address. An example of such abuse is sending advertising by electronic postcard service to the recipient's mail. According to the anti-spam rules used by large Internet providers, such advertising is counted as spam, because the recipient never agreed to receive it. The sender of the postcard, as well as the service can be held liable for the act of sending spam, because the service sent spam, the sender of the postcard provided an email address.

In some cases, sending electronic greetings to customers using the electronic postcard service may be illegal for an organization or business. For example, data privacy laws may prohibit businesses from disclosing customer information to third parties - including names and email addresses.

At the end of June 2007, a wave of letters with the subject “You received a postcard from a family member!” And other similar topics made their way to the Internet. Unfortunately, most of these emails contained links to malicious websites that used JavaScript to hack the browser to compromise the system, or contained a link to a malicious file masquerading as an electronic postcard.