Site Seeing - December 19

It all started a few years ago with the popular 'blue mountain'. The time when surfing the world wide web was still new and sending e-cards, a novelty. The mother of all sites continues to be bluemountain.com, dubbed "the world's favourite e-cards" online store, but many more have made a stamp today in this crowded arena (www.appuonline.com.cards.html, www.ecardsrediff.com and amazon.com's e-cards). A look at some interesting options that help you email an emotion, be it simple birthday blessings, a hug, sharing 'Pet'ty problems or imitating Elvis Claus (Santa doing a take on Elvis). There's a card for virtually every sentiment!

www.123greetings.com
Colourful and cluttered, the site downloads quickly with the homepage listing an extensive range that covers arts, at work, birthday, cute cards, events and holidays (eat-what-you-want days, boxing day), family, flowers, food and drink, friendship, gifts, kids, love, music, pets, religion, specials, sports, teens, toys, travel, wedding. It's addictive, surfing and discovering a cyber hog or just stirring up some mischief on Cocoa Day.

There's even a category called Every Day Cards that includes I love you, thank you, for a friend, Christmas for kids, yummy holidays, birthday wishes, woof a hi ('I miss you pawfully' is cute), best friends, roses for your love, love songs, get well, sorry, keep-in-touch, birthday flowers and share a hug. There's every reason and season (Ramadan, Christmas) for sending a thought.

www.123greetings.com is part of 123India.com, India's premier portal that offers branded web content. It is also the largest guide in terms of users, database, advertising and reach among the Indian community on the Internet. It has partners in Africa, Australia, China, Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore and Africa, and has over 2.5 million users.

www.regards.com
A card can say more than a thousand words. At www.regards.com you have arrived at the Internet's one-stop communication centre that offers multiple options in communication. There are over 5,000 cards within 150 content categories (birthdays, break-up, achievement, horoscopes), an invitation service, reminders or a chance to order printed stationery. Besides sending free cards you can even use your own images to make a card and send it.

It also has one of the largest collections on the web today of multimedia interactive flash cards, games and animation. You can select and attach over 300,000 song snippets to any of your cards which can be played without separate applications or plug-ins. Besides daily quotes and horoscopes, you can also create your own personal address book for easy and frequent use. It also offers live video streaming movie cards. Liberal humour (the 'congratulations on a job well done' has an ant holding up an elephant) and smart graphics make for an enjoyable surfing experience here.

www.hallmark.com
"Good taste is good business," declared J.C. Hall, the founder of Hallmark, who quite literally took two shoeboxes (in 1915) filled with simple picture postcards and transformed them into a unique way for people to share their feelings and touch the lives of others around the world. His philosophy continues to be the standard of excellence for Hallmark Cards.

Extending its trademark style to the web, www.hallmark.com offers easy-to-find, easy-to-send e-cards, flowers and gifts. Once you become a member, you can use your personal address book and calendar to set reminders that help you keep track of special occasions. There are free cards for Upcoming Holidays (Christmas, New Year), Milestones (Anniversary, Baby, Back to School, Birthday), Just A Note (Friendship, Get Well, Good Luck, Love, Miss You, New Home) and Special Collections.

www.blab.com (earlier known as e-cards.com)
Cool graphics, quick download with personalised message board, make www.blab.com an easy choice for zany card lovers. Blab.com was originally launched as ecards.com in 1999 with a vision to provide the world with free, expressive greeting cards via the Net.

Now the company has morphed into Blab Media Inc. and offers thousands of free greetings, free services such as reminders, address books, calendars and a host of other fun applications such as custom card builders, invitation systems and interactive trivia applications. For sheer fun check out the cards in Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Arabic, Chinese, Dutch, French, German, Greek and Hindi!