Posts Tagged ‘Social Media’

Share Awesome Birthday Ideas

November 8th, 2011

As we become more and more of a digital generation, I wonder how we will integrate daily aspects of our lives into the “www” world. Like, how can we celebrate birthdays in a 100% online fashion? What is exciting, about this idea of a virtual birthday, are the innovative options its users can offer. Online users possess a strong sense of community and authenticity. However, as unorthodox as this idea may sound, options are already available to the bold user.

For the users who feel passionate about online gaming, they can organize to meet and play against each other at virtual worlds. For instance, DDO’s celebrated its 5th birthday with its users in a purely online manner this past February. Twitter uploaded a website where the company featured a Youtube video featuring 16 famous people—amongst them UFC’s president, Dana White. If you want to read more on how these media companies celebrated their birthdays online, check out http://www.cssreflex.com/2011/06/10-popular-website-birthdays.html/. Other sites recommend booking a computer lab or an online forum where everyone invited can meet and contribute by competing in games or creating websites to mark the occasion.

Another area that I have not addressed yet is the birthday gifts. In the web, we have the option of online gifts—but, they may be costly and require you to provide credit information. However, my favourite option available is Mashup Arts . These guys embody the online ethos of our generation, since they use UGC (user generated content), and their app. operates on Facebook.  Like the options provided above, Mashup Arts removes the cost pressure, and focuses on the birthday boy/girl. The app. is all about making personalized birthday cards for the person. If you are on Facebook, you may download the app. for free. A feature of the app., named the Automashup, creates a 3 page photo ecard with Youtube video(s), and a personalized title. If you don’t like the card, you click “remix”, and the app. instantly provides you with new content. Plus, as a way to promoting community spirit, many users can participate in the making of one card.

After reviewing this, I’m excited to see how social media may extend online celebrations.

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

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Mashup Arts Launches a New Video And Photo Greetings Service Just in Time for the Holidays

December 1st, 2009

Bringing Social Networking to the Greeting Card Market
Mashup Arts, announced the launch of its Holiday and Christmas ecard service designed for video and photo lovers of all ages. The new online service helps people create their own custom cards with multimedia tools. The opposite of mass market cards, these greetings can be highly personalized by embracing the diversity of the visual Internet.

The idea is to start with photos and designs from the community, and then mix in free Internet content from sites like YouTube and Flickr. People can also add their own pictures, music or videos so their greetings really feel “home-made.”

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“With so much creativity being shared on the Internet, we feel there is huge market for a new class of greetings where talented people share their ideas, and anyone can mix in their favorite content,” said Shaun MacDonald, CEO of Mashup Arts. “The key is to help people get started, and for that, we have built a model with templates, simple design tools, community sharing and artist attribution. If we can catch the wave for sharing and remixing content with shared workspaces, we will create a new segment in this market.”

The social community stands in contrast to the classic studio model, where you shop for cards and sign them. This new model allows people to be creative with simple on-demand search and design tools, so they can mash up titles, photos, videos and music to match their personal style.

Users can import their photos directly from Facebook. Cards that are made public can be browsed for ideas, and reused in whole or in part as people create something new from something old. The ability to mix in multiple videos and photo slide shows is unique in the market, and this is of particular value for people interested in creating team, school, group or family cards.

Free to use, the ecard service will make money through premium value added modules for printing, DVD’s and storage, as well as enterprise services for companies to bolster their brand promotions.

The technology platform is a thin web based application with a flash interface for rendering videos, images, music and text. The workspace environment was developed in PHP and AJAX, with numerous technology API mashups like YouTube for videos, Flickr with a Creative Commons API for photos, CCMixter with a Creative Commons API for music, and Picnik for photo editing. The greetings are assembled on the fly from their discrete elements. This is to enable remixing so images and videos can be shared within the community, and it reduces storage by avoiding content duplication.

About Mashup Arts

Mashup Arts is the “Mashup Card Company.” Our website was built for social networkers who want to share video ecards and photo ecards by mixing their personal content with free Internet content. We encourage individual and community creativity. The application offers options to customize ecards so they better reflect your style or brand. You can also create group ecards for your office, team or school. We help people to play with photos, videos, text and music to create unique and memorable cards. The flexibility and search options are suited for our diverse cultures. Check out what our community members have made for your Birthday Cards, Weddings, Christmas and the Holiday Season, Valentines, Chinese New Year, Diwali, or your favorite charity event.

To view the video’s associated with this press release, please visit the links below:

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Posted in Ecards, 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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