Posts Tagged ‘Birthday Cards’

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)


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Posted in Birthday Cards, Ecards, Facebook, Mashup Arts, Mashups

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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.

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Posted in Birthday Cards, Facebook, Mashup Arts, Mashups, You Tube

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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.

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Posted in Birthday Cards, Ecards, Facebook

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Making Occasions Social

June 10th, 2009

Building Social Cards together with friends at Mashup Arts:

Have you ever received a greeting card from ‘All of Us’?  You know, the ones where every one passes around a pen and frantically signs it before you come through the door to the choir yelling ‘surprise’?

You’ve probably also seen some of your friend’s photos or videos posted to their Facebook or Myspace page and scrolled through the litany of comments about someone’s fashion choice, silly expression or compromising position.

Whether it’s offline or on, friends converge to share well wishes, opinions and to add their two cents to a story.

Online it’s easy to send around photos or get messages to people, but we noticed there really isn’t a place where friends can come together to add photos, videos and comments to create collaborative graphical stories.  We created Social Cards so friends can work together on a birthday card, to commemorate a great vacation, or simply to create graphical stories everyone can contribute to.

What is always so surprising is the creativity of our users.  We’ve seen people bring their friends together to make a touching get well Mashup Card, a detailed ‘birthday times’ newspaper card that chronicles all the famous people born on the same day, and others sharing content to celebrate Britney Spears’ rollercoaster career.

Take any Mashup Card you create and click on ‘Social Card’ to start inviting your friends to contribute. You can set the timeframe you want your friends to contribute their content by, and even preset a date and time the final Social Card will be sent to the recipient. Once your friends receivetheir invitation to contribute email they can start adding photos, slideshows, videos and even comment on other content that has already been posted.  As the creator of the Social Card, you’ll be able to make the final edits and send it off to its destination.  After the card is sent, the conversation continues, because the recipient can view the card, and add their own comments.  Also, anyone can share a Social Card on theirFacebook page.

We hope you like our Social Cards. If you have any questions or feedback, please drop us a note at feedback@mashuparts.com

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Posted in Ecards, Mashup Arts, Mashups

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