One of the things that might take a hit this year is the retail store holiday card industry. With so many options to 
connect with people via anything but paper (email and social media), I expect to see some very creative online ideas.
Its not just the sending of cards either. Consulting firm Deloitte estimates that 17% of consumers would use social media during their holiday shopping to compare or shop for gifts. How do you plan to send your greetings or shop this year?
What did you get?
My first e-card was just received for 2009 Holiday season. It was from one of my favorite volunteer groups – the Ice Age Trail. If you are looking for a way to increase your activity in 2010, get outdoors more, and enjoy wonderful Wisconsin scenery, I suggest you consider joining and contributing time and funds.
I have also gotten a creative animated card from the Dane County YMCA Lodi Branch . They used JibJab that was an absolute hoot since you add the faces of people to the animated dancers. And of course its free.
If you are looking for a more substantial gift I love Amazon for widgets for building a wishlists for yourself that lets others get exactly the education gift you are looking for. On my book wishlist are Trust Agents by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith, Six Pixels of Separation by Mitch Joel, and the latest LinkedIn book Rock the World with Your Online Profile by Mike O’Neil, founder of Integrated Alliances (Disclosure – I am a regional executive director for IA).
These wishlist widgets can be added to your sites as well if you want to be helpful. For IPhone apps this might be a good place to down load your choice. This recent post at Widgets Labs highlights 3 different sites to go to for other types of apps.
Send me a card
Paper cards aren’t going away either. Just how you send them. In fact, I recently started using real cards that I send from a web based system called SendOutCards. Judging by SendOutCards, who indicated they had their largest day of sending cards last week at 405,203 cards in one day, real cards are going to continue to be big.
Why? Because we all get a little tired trying to find a WIFI location to read our e-cards!
Video has arrived 12-19-09
Yes! Today I started getting the first video greetings from businesses such as Hupspot and other social media related organizations. I will have to create my own response to post.
How are you sending your holiday greetings this year?
Related articles by Zemanta
- Facebook Pages Bring Out the Tinsel for the Holidays (insidefacebook.com)
- They’re Baaack! ElfYourself 2009 Is Now Live (techcrunch.com)
- HashLove.com – Greeting Cards A La Twitter (killerstartups.com)
- Free holiday eBook- In the Nick of Time (chrisbrogan.com)
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