Archive for the ‘Facebook’ category

Celebrate Long Distance Birthdays

October 25th, 2011

I have a niece who turns 15 next week. She called me yesterday, all the way from Mexico, to invite me to her party. I felt heartbroken to say ‘no’, because it’s a big deal. In our culture, when a girl turns 15, her parents introduce her to society in a huge, formal party known as “Fiesta de Quinceañera”. At the party, family and friends enjoy dinner to live music. The party’s highlight occurs when the birthday girl dances with her dad and her 15 “chambelanes” –   a fancy title for the guy friends of the girl. Since I won’t be in Mexico to mark the occasion, I still want to let her know that she’s on my mind.

After a week, I logged-in to Facebook to post “Happy Birthday Martha!” on her wall. Yet, staring at the sea of “happy bday”s, I knew she wouldn’t make it to my post. It’s just not personal enough. So, I did a quick search for photo or video cards. I found a birthday card app. called Mashup Arts . I downloaded it for free on FB and put it to use.

The app. created a slideshow that ranged from baby photos of my cousin to my favourite photo of both of us.  I flipped to the next page of the card; the app.’s template offered me the option to keep adding photos or post a Youtube video. I kept the video the app. suggested—it featured the goofiest, singing coneheads. Before I clicked “send”, I uploaded a photo of myself and used Picnik to add a birthday hat and confetti – as if I was at her party. I sent the card to her FB wall, and took off to work.

I still wish to be at Mexico to celebrate my niece’s birthday. But, I felt pretty good about the app. The card was personal; it used photos of ourselves, and allowed me to upload Youtube videos. The fact that the app. was free stands as a bonus. Plus, I know that my niece will look at it because the app. runs on Facebook. I can’t wait to call her tomorrow to wish Martha a “FELIZ Quinceañera!”

Click here to view my card:

(http://www.mashuparts.com/ecard/f245d773/happy-birthday-martha)


10 Easy Tips to Use Birthday Mashup Cards Creatively

October 19th, 2011

It is time to try new things! Welcome to Birthday Mashup Cards, an application that challenges the notions of custom e-cards as it sets free your imagination. Birthday Mashup Cards enables you to place  pictures, audio and video to create the most personalized e-card you can imagine. Although this new application is fully guided by your imagination, below are some tips that will help make your e-card, the most personal and unique gift your friend will ever receive!

TIP 1: Try the automashup: If you are new to this application we recommend that as a new user, work with the different templates we offer.

TIP 2: Try the community templates and remix the shared cards. See what other Facebook users are doing.  remember that an image is worth a thousand words. Think about how you want to approach your viewer. If you are unsure of what tone to choose for your e-card make yourself this question: Do I want my e-card to be serious? Humorous?

TIP 3: Select the font to match your page: Remember that the font type is as important as the image or template you choose. Taking this into consideration, Birthday Mashup Cards has installed distinct fonts that will undoubtedly add to your e-card. A quick note on it, is to remember that cursive fonts tend to reflect a much serious, elegant approach, while the other fonts are more playful and adventurous.

TIP 4: Add Multiple Pages. With Birthday Mashups Cards, you can add multiple pages to your e-card. Each page can be personalized differently, which in turn adds to the excitement of receiving one.

TIP 5: Add Images: Add images of you and your friend in the e-card. This will add an extra touch to the gift, as your friend will know that you took your time to make him/her the e-card. Also feel free to add other images (such as fireworks, flowers, etc) as it makes the e-card even more dynamic.

TIP 6: Use Picnik: Once you have your image use Picknik to edit it. Make your picture perfect by adding as many filters as you need. If you are unsure of where to begin try boosting the color, cropping the image, removing red eye, or maybe even giving it a vintage look.

TIP 7: Use Audio: Audio adds to the mood of any e-card. Don’t be afraid of testing. Remember that any good song can make any e-card go from good to spectacular!

Tip 8: Use Video: Who doesn’t love a good video? Choose from a variety of videos we have, or better yet, feel free to be creative. A good idea would be making a video of yourself singing/congratulating your friend to later add it to the e-card.

TIP 9: PUNK your e-card: Give the final touches to your e-card by using the Punk’d feature. Let your friend have a laugh!

TIP 10: SHARE. Send your e-card and share the content you used! Remember that the application is user generated, and the more we add, the more varieties and ideas we will have. However, the defaults are all private, and feel free to keep those settings.

Video Mashup Cards for the Million Facebook Users Having a Birthday Today

March 16th, 2010

Mashup Arts Launches its Birthday Application on the Corner of Facebook and YouTube.

Birthday Cards is a top 5 application on Facebook, and now with the new advanced features of Facebook Connect, Facebook users can quickly create Birthday Mashup Cards that mix in videos, music and funny picture effects for their friends.

The new application is called “Birthday Mashup Cards” and its themes are jokes, personal touches and shared creativity. It can be seen at http://apps.facebook.com/BdayMashup

“We want users to be able to browse through shared community cards to find something they like, and then mix in free Internet content from YouTube, Flickr, or even their own Facebook photos directly from the application” said Shaun MacDonald, CEO of Mashup Arts.  The best part of the application is that people can remix the card their way, making it more personal and funny.

Many young people send virtual gifts and simple greetings when they see that it is a friend’s birthday using birthday calendar. Now with Mashup Cards they can up the ante … and send remixes with videos directly to a friend’s wall, or privately via email.

Finding something funny in different languages can be impossible, so we designed the application to allow people to search a world of images and videos directly from Facebook,  Flickr and YouTube, while mixing in titles and messages in their language of choice.

They can use the integrated Picnik module to add funny effects to photos, bubbles, and clip art.   Picnik is a popular application with the Facebook crowd, so much so that the company was just acquired by Google.  A Toronto fashion design student, Priya Mistry said “I really liked the way the Birthday application allowed me to import and modify my Facebook pictures, and add YouTube videos right into my Card.”

The core application is always free with advertising on the site, and the Company intends to add premium print and gifting features in 2010.

About Mashup Arts www.MashupArts.com

Mashup Arts is the “Mashup Card Company.” Our new Birthday application was built for Facebook users who want to share video and photo Mashup Cards by mixing their personal content with free Internet content. We help people celebrate their friend’s birthdays by creating unique mixes of photos, videos, text and music with built-in links to entertaining content at YouTube, Picasa, Flickr and Facebook. The flexibility and search options are well suited for our diverse cultures, and the community mashups are a great source of ideas. The creativity is shared, so people can remix and reuse Mashup Cards to delight their friends. The model is user-generated creative content mashups on top of our platform – with its technology mashups.

The International Buzz for the new Video & Photo Ecards at Mashup Arts

October 27th, 2009

Our world is getting smaller, and here in Toronto we can certainly see its multicultural mixes on the streets and in the shops. Most people in this city come from another country and culture, with much of our recent growth coming from Asia, the Middle-East, and Latin America.

Over the past week, we unexpectedly received reviews from The Times of India’s big publication, the Mumbai Mirror; Geekismo in Italy; and yesterday Baixaki of Brazil. I’ll share with you a few excerpts here, along with a Video that a new American user put together and shared on YouTube.

The Mumbai Mirror writers made a photo ecard and got the concept quickly. “Make your own custom ecards by combining pictures from various social networking sites with text and music. www.mashuparts.com lets you make animated, video, or just plain picture ecards with just a few clicks. The site is free to use and even has premade templates that you can use to make your cards.”

In Italy – the Geekismo writers wrote [translated for you] “MashupArts is a very valuable service that will allow us to create an E-card to be shared on various social networks, or to download and send via mail….. It is an intuitive and comprehensive service, with which you can actually deliver some good work. Try it!

From Atlanta, Michael Melvin created a combo photo and video ecard to share the award winning success of his recent movie, Broken. He then took the time to make this YouTube video that smartly showed off many of the features of our site. Thank you Michael and your Illumination team. We wish you all the best. I added a mashup here so you can see Michael’s clip.

The writers at Baixaki.com.br in Brazil took the time to test the application, and wrote a excellent review including describing what a Mashup meant [translated for you]: “The expression means “unite”, “join”, “mix”, and this is exactly what you will do with this ‘creator of virtual cards’ to send to your friends and family.” The article compliments the integration with Facebook and YouTube. “The Mashup Arts is a service highly interactive and simple to use.”

We look forward to more bithday ecards, a season of family Christmas and Holiday cards with photos and videos, and of course Halloween ecards. Most of the community ecards created on the site have been made by women and shared by women, so do not be surprised if you see a little more style and grace this season.

50,000 Beer Drinking Canadians say Cheers to a Dead Man on Facebook

September 29th, 2009

Canadian beer drinkers are responding to the TV campaign to join in the celebration of Alexander Keith’s birthday by going to Facebook and signing one of his free ecards. As of this morning, the Keith’s facebook page had picked up over 50,000 fans, with over 12,000 signatures on 3,000 birthday cards. It is one of the most successful marketing campaigns of the year, and a great example of a cross media campaign that uses social media to connect with people online.

The marketing teams for Keith’s and its parent firm Labatt’s have hit a home run by engaging beer fans to interact with their brand, and to enable a viral campaign as they share news of the contest with their online friends.

The Alexander Keith’s brand has long been steeped in tradition, and the maritime beer drinking spirit of good times. A few lucky winners of the contest get invited to travel to a big party, and thousands more dream of winning a prize.

Some marketers are looking for even more engaging campaigns where fans not only type in their comments, but also add in their pictures and videos – perhaps even mashing up their personal content with the brand contest content. The recently released Mashup Arts application for videos cards and social cards, or the Animoto application with its pro image effects can backstop these campaigns.

Expect to see many more variations of these cross media campaigns as first movers take advantage of these social media techniques to connect with their customers.