Animated Valentine Cards

Creative way to use E-CARDS

Creative way to use E-CARDS

INTRODUCTION

(Electronic-CARD) A greeting card or postcard created on the digital web and send to someone via the web. Most of the sites e-cards are paid for by banner ads you see when you design your card, while others use this as a way to attract traffic to the site to sell other products or services.
In addition to your own text, e-cards allow different backgrounds, images and music to be used. The cards are sent by e-mail with a link to a Web page containing your personalized e-card for a certain period of time. There are many sites and many names for the service. Use your favorite search engine and search for "ecard", "e-card", "Icard," "I-Card," "digital postcard", "digital greeting card" or "virtual card". The most notable e-card site is Blue Mountain Arts (www.bluemountain.com).

Use

Typically an e-card sender chooses from an online catalog of e-cards available on the website of a publisher. After selecting a card, the sender can personalize various degrees by adding a message, photo or video. Finally the sender specifies the recipient's e-mail and the website provides an e-mail to the recipient on behalf of the sender.

Technological change

E-card technology has improved significantly since 1984, at the time of its creation. A technical aspect that has remained essentially constant is the delivery mechanism: The e-mail received by the recipient contains not the e-card in itself, but an individually coded link back to the publisher's website which displays the map of the sender exactly as it was originally configured.

Postcards

"Postcards" use static (non moving) images. They were the first type of electronic board in use. The recipient sees a single artistic image, accompanied by a personalized greeting message.

Flash Animation

This type of e-card is based on two-dimensional vector animation controlled with a scripting language. The format is owned by Adobe, however, the widespread use of Adobe software allows this type of card to be easily viewed on most computers today. The recipient sees an animated short usually 15-30 seconds in duration. The animation often seems to have a cartoon style due to the nature of the content, although some Flash creations can be quite sophisticated and realistic. A soundtrack that can contain speech or music usually accompanies the animation.

May include animated Flash greeting cards interactivity, for example, asking the viewer to choose an image to animate, but most Flash e-cards are designed to convey the feeling of the sender through simple observation.

Flash animated cards are offered today by almost all the major publishers of electronic board and therefore the format most commonly used.

Video ecards

"Video ecards" use a combination of personalized text and video to convey the message to the recipient.

Vidwizz.com - VidWizz is a company that allows video messaging and personalized allowing you to create personalized video messages that give your words unique visual impact. Your text is incorporated into a video and sent to whoever you want.

Mobile E-Cards

With advances in mobile technologies, Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) which is essentially SMS image, became more popular. E-cards can now be sent to mobile devices and phones. Mobile e-cards or "MCards" as they are commonly known are then offered by different content providers and mobile carriers. Like e-cards, MCards can contain multiple images, music and text messages.

One of the first companies that created MCards is a Dutch company called Mgreetings (established 2003). MCards can be sent from a PC in a manner similar to the postcard. Users can go to a website online, select a card to enter the mobile number of the recipient, and the card will be sent to recipient's mobile pho.