A card for every laugh or cry

To stem the tide of people turning to e-cards, card companies are churning out jokes drawn from real life, reports The Boston Globe.

Both American Greetings and Hallmark are working on lines of cards whose humor stems from reality. The shift is meant to try and appeal to the women who purchase 80 percent of all cards sold.

The move to grow more topical comes as people find more and more options for communicating electronically, via e-mail, social networks and more. That threatens to chip away at the $7.5 billion-a-year card industry.