Sounds like a good idea. The selection on ecards is pretty poor. I think a service where you pick the ecard and can then have the thing printed and sent via sail mail would work as well. My granny does not like the internet etc etc.

Rich

Why not
Tommy

Where would you get the Ecards? Would you be a middle-man delivering Ecards from a website to facebook? Where is the profit?

The content is pretty easy to create in-house, just need a designer and/or writer with a wicked sense of humor. Another option is to crowdsource the design work (users submit eCards and the top vote getters are put on the site). You could also partner with an existing site (again, http://www.someecards.com is a perfect example) and do a revenue share. It's actually a great deal for the content provider in terms of gaining access to a new audience and delivery mechanism with very little reworking of content.

Monetization would be done in typical FB app fashion (ads, promos for other FB apps). Could maybe do some sort of point system as well (i.e. fill out this survey to win 5 points - get to 50 points to unlock new cards to send).

I don't know much about facebook - would they actually endorse something like this ? Is it required to make this idea launch ?

Also is it smart to launch a new FB application with Google's new ultra-network ?

This is one of those 'why hasn't this been done before?' ideas. Developing for facebook is relatively straightforward and with the popularity it's enjoying at the moment I think it's definitely worth it.

My only misgivings are about whether the ability to send 'gifts' and write messages on facebook makes ecards redundant, but let's face it - ecards are far more sensible than most of the crap that's currently out there, so I'm sure if it was done well it'd be popular.

Get to it!

There was a similar idea that was called crap-e-cards that all ready won ideawarz:

http://www.cambrianh...er/ideas-id/xiJ3nsu/

Actually I'm surprised Hallmark hasn't attempted to do a deal and market their free E-Cards (and associated gifts etc) into Facebook this way.

E-Cards are not a new thing for Facebook. How do you attend to be different and how do you attend to make money? (ads?)

thecougar, I like the submit-your-own-card aspect of crap eCards with the facebook infrastructure of your idea. Maybe you and travellingguy can combine your efforts? The cards need not be crappy.

I think you're underestimating the cost to create quality/funny cards. It definitely takes some work and effort to do it right.

I think you could do this well, but you'd need to expand quickly. It wouldn't be that hard for someecards.com to build their own facebook app and they already have a ton of content. Hopefully you understand facebook apps better than they do and so you'll survive.

What's the profit model? Would you sell the cards themselves? Might be hard for people on Facebook to warm up to, since so many things on there are free. Look at the Gifts thing, for example. People immediately created a "Free Gifts" application.

Guys, I just came across this new Facebook Application of 123Greetings.com which has a pretty huge collection of free ecards (20,000... can you beat that)! Check out this link below:

http://www.allfacebo...es-robust-ecard-app/

Guess, 123Greetings has already executed your brilliant idea, thecougar! I checked out the application myself. It's pretty cool... you can use it to send ecards for any occasion to as many friends you can think of. I liked it... might as well start sending cards to everyone since they offer an awesome variety of events.... ever heard of Take Your Ass for a Walk Day??!!