Birthdays Made Easy

Recently I got an email from a friend which contained a link to an online e-card site. Now, I'm not new to these sites, I have been to plenty of them and know that they have been around a long time. However, this site had a very neat and convenient feature that I have never seen before on other sites (or maybe I just don't know that it is available on every other e-card site, but bare with me). The link took me to her account page and requested me to enter my birthday under her "stored birthdays". This site enables the user to storoe specific birthdays for all of their families, friends, relatives, etc., create the e-card for them, and then the e-card is sent to each specific birthday. As mentioned before, I know that you can do this manually on many e-card sites, but I've never seen a store feature.

In my family, my mom keeps a calendar specifically for birthdays on the pantry door. Although she keeps it as a reminder and organizer not to forget these birthdays, it usually prevent forgetting them that much because it's just hangin there---you still have to remember to send the card. I feel that if I informed my mother of the previously mentioned e-card feature on the web, despite it being such a great convenience, she would still probably prefer not to use it. For some reason--although it seems peculiar but that doesn't keep it from being true--e-cards are viewed much less personal by many people, at least in my experience. Maybe this is due to the fact that they are so easy to do--the recipient feels that the sender was too lazy to go and buy a physical birthday card. Or they may view that it doesn't really mean much because they would have forgotten had not the site remembered them. However, an interesting characteristic I've found is that between my peers this doesn't seem the case; in fact at times I prefer e-cards over physical cards because they are more customizable for the sender--thus making them more personal in my eyes (or maybe i just like the warm, fuzzy feeling i experience. Not to mention they are way better than facebook birthdays) In any case, it is interesting that such a great invention is still resisted by a majority of the networked populace.

P.S. The site is www.birthdayalarm.com