Several online greeting-card companies crashed Tuesday due to an overload of users sending internet Valentines, writes The Washington Post (via MediaBuyerPlanner). The Hallmark Cards website was overwhelmed and went down several times on Valentine's Day. Cleveland's American Greetings Corp. traffic peaked at a rate of 500,000 people sending internet Valentines every hour through its sites. The company's interactive division expects that it exceeded the 5 million e-cards it projected would be sent.
Users are willing to pay for the speed, efficiency and variety that come with e-cards. In the first three quarters of 2005, American Greetings' interactive unit generated $68 million in revenue by charging users a $13.99 subscription fee.
The rise of e-cards has not diminished the number of paper Valentine's Day cards, which has held steady at about 190 million for the past five years - 85 percent them purchased by women.
