As we wrote about a couple weeks ago, Someecards, makers of hilarious online greeting cards, are delving into doing video cards. The first batch are now online. And yes, they’re quite good.
The cards feature the same solid color backgrounds that are distinct on Someecards, but rather than black and white drawings, they have actors acting out short video skits. The first ones feature comedians Michael Ian Black and Michael Showalter, who are promoting their new Comedy Central show, Michael & Michael.
Most online advertising is lame. Yes, the idea of a click-through ad is great, but let’s be honest, a lot of time that involves tricking people into clicking on your ad. Whatever happened to building brand awareness through compelling advertising? I think someecards is pretty damn good at that — and they’re going to get better.
You probably know someecards as the startup that makes those hilarious online greeting cards with the oddly black and white, and usually outdated pictures. If you don’t know what I mean, just look around at any of the examples I’ve included in this post, I’m sure you’ve seen them before. But what you might not know is that the company is also doing branded advertising on some of its cards. For example, they offer cards branded by the hit Showtime show Weeds, the show Bridezillas, the shoemaker Puma and Jose Cuervo.
Warning: some people may find some of the content in this post offensive.
If you are a fan of The Onion and can never seem to find just the right ecard to send to friends and family, you’re going to love Someecards. The company is announcing a seed round financing today - more details below.
The company was founded by former Onion writer Brook Lundy and Duncan Mitchell, and quietly launched in April 2007. It’s fairly straightforward - they create simple ecards like the one above with Onion-style humor, and let people email them to each other. Without any launch notice, press or marketing, the site has grown virally to 1.5 million unique monthly visitors, who are pretty passionate about the site. A few recent emails that the team have received:
To date, the team, which includes six part time writers, has created 1,900 cards. The most popular are here, but, really, you could spend a happy afternoon reading all of them. I’ve put three of them in this post.
The site was a part time project for the two founders, but the unexpected popularity of the service led to them to seek outside funding so they could quit their day jobs. Today they’re announcing a $350,000 seed round, led by Betaworks and notable angel investor Chris Sacca.
Apologies for this last one, but it definitely shows the edgy content on the site. Compare this to the American Greetings site dedicated to off-humor stuff, Kiwee (example), and you’ll understand why Someecards has a growing cult following.
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