After looking over recent stats from Hitwise Intelligence on the decline of e-cards and the simultaneous rise of social media, we were stopped mid-yawn by this weird little blip on the radar:
On Mothers’ Day, e-cards show a less drastic YoY decline, and social media visits actually temporarily plunge, showing a 13 percent decrease in site visits between Mothers’ Day 2008 and Mothers’ Day 2009. Do we think Mom isn’t checking her Facebook? Or is it that we consider a more old-fashioned and difficult method of communication more “personal” somehow?
We asked a couple Twitter friends about this phenomenon. According to one respondent, if a mom is on Facebook, she’s fair game to start receiving her digital greetings there. On the other end of the spectrum, we were also asked, “Oh my, what happened to paper cards and handwriting?”
But Mothers’ Day aside, e-cards are definitely a dying breed. Between 2008 and 2009, e-card site visits were down around 30 percent for most holidays. The exceptions were Mothers’ Day, Christmas Eve and Thanksgiving. Christmas Eve and Thanksgiving still showed robust social media use, however.
It’s also to be noted that most networks have built-in reminder mechanisms for quicly and simply sending greetings to friends, while e-cards sites have to rely on your shoddy memory and sense of guilt to get their traffic.
What is it about moms that make us abandon the computer to wish them well on their special day?
