The Rise of the E-Card

Ecards emerged in the late 1990’s as people started using email for work and personal communications. As internet speeds improved and email providers competed to out do each other with new features, people gained the ability to send not just text via email but also images and GIFs. At the same time, Adobe released the Flash video player which gave websites and web browsers the ability to display videos. The conditions were set for a new type of greeting card: the eCard. 

eCards: 1998 – 2018

For 20 years eCards were sent as links via email. You would purchase an eCard and then at the chosen time the eCard company would send an email to the recipient inviting them to click a link that would take them to a web page with the eCard. On the page the receiver would likely see a generic video or a picture as well as a personalised message. Customers could send last minute cards to friends and family, even if they lived across the globe. eCards sent via email were a card senders last minute lifeline! 

A Dying Breed

But then something curious happened… The original eCard customers were still happily sending their email cards but younger people were not becoming eCard customers themselves. Ecards became a slightly embarrassing thing your granny emailed you once in a year. Often she had to call you to ask you if you’d seen the card. You might even have to check your spam. The eCard customer base was a dying breed. Younger people weren’t using email for personal messaging (“Hi friend, what have you been up to?”), they were using instant messaging apps such as WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, iMessage or Instagram. Also they’d learned to be suspicious of email links from companies they didn’t know so lots of eCards were going unopened. Email ecards did not fit the modern consumer. 

A more modern approach: 2018 onwards

In 2018, 2050cards created a new type of eCard. The card was a personalised video rather than a website landing page which mean’t that instead of sending the receiver a link people could directly share the eCard in their instant messaging app of choice. Whether that’s Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal or iMessage, a customer can share the eCard directly and privately with the recipient. And instead of the receiver getting the card from a company they’ve not heard of and thinking it’s spam, they receive the card directly from the sender, their friend. Sending the card in WhatsApp in the same way that they would send a photo or video makes the experience feel much more intimate. 2050cards is the digital equivalent of delivering a card by hand.