When it comes to ecards or greetings cards, the common opinion is that the days of lending them a personal touch are over. There was a time when you could hunker down and create your own cards if you really wanted to make it personal. But that touch of love-effort has been eliminated from our lives thanks to the crop of ecard and greetings websites that are out there now.
Somewhere down the line I have felt that we need to get rid of templates and boilerplates from our lives, and get back our originality. Thankfully, when it comes to ecards, a site like Card Karma allows us to do that…short of drawing illustrations ourselves.
With the holiday season in some parts of the world just a month away, let’s check out how Card Karma can help you make your own ecards, and share them with the world.
Doing Away With Pre-Made Greeting Cards
Card Karma says that when it comes to creating personal ecards, you will only be limited by your own imagination rather than the small selection of pre-made ecards. Card Karma offers you no templates, but allows you to roam free and pick the best from Flickr, YouTube, and any image that you may want to use from your desktop to illustrate the card.
All images and videos that are available on the site come under Creative Commons. So, you really have millions of images or videos to choose from as Flickr and YouTube are virtual gold mines thanks to ‘free’ spirited creative hands.
A glimpse reveals that there’s loads of variety at hand. You can mouse-over any thumbnail to see a larger version of image used.
How About Funny Meme Cards?
You can take a meme and make it over into an ecard that you intend to send somewhere with a humorous punch. Meme, by the way, is any cultural information that spreads virally across the web. That pretty much covers everything that’s spreading across the social networks these days. The collection here is small, but you can always pick up more from YouTube and Flickr, or even upload it from your desktop.
Do-It-Yourself Ecards
What I really like about Card Karma is the minimal and clutter free interface. I really hope it stays that way (and the web app itself stays free).
The simple 4 step process starts with designing the basic layout. Card Karma gives you full range of options to customize the card and then personalize it with your own message. More often than not, you would like to go for a different choice of image or video. You can use the search tool or explore the images/videos that are already available on Card Karma.
The Card Karma search page gives you the filters to choose from. Card Karma tells you to hold your horses while it expansively trawls Flickr or YouTube.
My keyword “inspirational” netted me 4000+ images! Choose one and go ahead with thinking up a message or a greeting. You can depend on Card Karma and its library of messages too. Card Karma has basic text editing tools which help you format your message neatly.
Choosing and occasion and setting the privacy levels brings you to the first preview of the card. You can choose to keep your image and message private.
Ultimately, you land up on the page with all the share options. From email to embedding, you get to pick up the one you want. I posted mine to a friend’s wall on Facebook.
There’s lot to like about Card Karma and its neat ecards. The site may not have the razzmatazz, but it keeps things really simple. Even then, you have quite a range to be creative with. Create your own ecard and spread your wishes around. Tell us all about it in the comments.
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