American Greetings - Try Free, Get Free Screensavers, Free Wallpapers and Birthday Reminders
Written: Oct 18, 2009 (Updated Oct 18, 2009)
| Ease of Ordering: |
 |
|
| Customer Service: |
|
|
| Selection: |
|
|
| On-Time Delivery: |
|
|
|
| Full Review |
We may have finally reached the time when society doesn't completely frown on e-cards as a substitute for a four dollar heavy stock print signed with a flourish by a Montblanc pen.
Social networks like Facebook, Plaxo and MySpace keep us well informed of birthdays and special events for an ever-increasing group of people. You may have always remembered the birthdays and anniversaries of family and close friends, but now you have an email that the college pal you recently started emailing is having a birthday.
You might stop by the social network and add your wish to the many casual wishes already there. I would argue that you should be a little different. Subscribe to American Greetings and send them a personalized e-card from a huge assortment.
Cards For More Than Birthdays
Did you see on LinkedIn that a colleague just landed a new job somewhere? As I write this, American Greetings has 98 different cards to offer congratulations. Seven of the cards are actually business specific. Among the other 91, dozens are event-appropriate, ranging from religious to humorous to "heartfelt".
American Greetings Features
American Greetings has a great contact manager that lets you merge records, track home and work information and add the kind of information you would expect from expensive standalone address books.
I treasure "The Outbook", a complete list of anything you've sent anyone. Looking back today I noticed that I sent my mother a card about a year ago. Her birthday is in spring and her anniversary is in winter so I couldn't imagine why. I clicked the "View" link and was able to see the actual card I sent and the message I wrote.
How cool is that?
American Greetings will also notify you if someone doesn't pick up their card and offers recipients a free way to send a free thank you card back. You even get a reminder service that lets you choose when you would like to be reminded of an event. The default is two weeks. I set the reminders to one week, which allows me to procrastinate a day or two and also make sure we're not actually seeing the person that day.
Reminders come via email or text message. And if you have a smart phone, you can access American Greetings on your cell and send a card then.
Free Wallpaper Too!
With so many images available, American Greetings did a smart thing and provides free high-resolution wallpaper and screensavers for subscribers. There are five aquarium screensavers and more than 60 calendar wallpapers. This free selection is great to browse through if you're like me and regularly switch your desktop.
You can rate any of the content -- free wallpapers, screesavers or cards -- with 1 to 5 stars. The home run for me is that when I access a card, American Greetings tells me who I've sent that card to already so I don't repeat myself.
Musical Ecards
Lately I've been alternating my birthday cards between "Cake Time", where some candles sing a grooving song to the tune of I Heard It Through The Grapevine and Dancing in the Street, which has that classic girl group jam working to make you, well, dance.
You can also type messages that are delivered in different accents by characters in the card or add your own photos.
Free Trial
American Greetings has a free 14 day trial. You can send cards, download wallpapers and screensavers, import your address book and do anything a paying subscriber does. I've been a subscriber for years. For the cost of a couple of traditional cards, I get a great address book, a reminder system, card tracking and screensavers and wallpapers.
Recommended:
Yes
What product did you purchase or try to purchase? American Greetings subscription
|
|
|
|
About the Author
Member: George Bounacos
Location: Chantilly, VA
Reviews written: 370
Trusted by: 401 members
About Me: Still cannot add Online Stores & Services to Epinions. We'll keep you posted.
|
