Blue Mountain: Good Holiday E-Card Source...For A Price

While they now charge for their e-card service, Blue Mountain still ranks among one of the best sources for e-cards on the Internet. Their selection is top-notch, and the customizable options make it a good choice if you send a lot of birthday or holiday e-cards throughout the year.

Blue Mountain used to be a site that allowed you to send e-cards for free. When they were purchased by American Greetings, however, all that changed. You have a few free cards on the site, but if you're looking for any kind of selection you need to pay for a subscription. The fee is relatively low depending on which kind you get, but unless you send a great number of e-cards every year it would probably be a better idea to stick with free e-cards or go to another e-card site.

If you do decide to pay for the service, the site's ease of use earns it high marks. Even the pickiest card sender will find something in a short period of time. They have cards ranging from Thanksgiving and Christmas to even lesser-known holidays. It also features a section for event and holiday reminders for subscribers, which can help you keep track during the year. You'll receive notification of the event two weeks prior and then again on the day itself.

Much like Amazon.com's process, first you choose a graphic (they offer animated cards as well). You'll notice something of a pattern in the "style" of their selections as Blue Mountain has a number of "regular" artists creating material for them. You can pick from a variety of pictures, animations or photos, and then you write the body of the card. In this instance, Blue Mountain has an advantage over other e-card sites in the fact you could write practically a novel for the card's message and still not run out of room. (Okay, that's an exaggeration, but you can still fit more in here than with, say, Amazon's 500-character limit.) The field where you write the text seems a little buggy, though, so it's best if you keep the sentences short. When you're finished, you can choose to add music to the card.

Also like Amazon, Blue Mountain allows you to send your e-card either right away or a little later (up to two weeks); this is especially handy if you don't want to forget to send it. You can also choose to send a gift with the card in the form of a gift certificate or magazine subscription. Blue Mountain's card-sending service is reliable, with the ability to send a copy to your email address in case it doesn't reach its destination the first time.

Yes, Blue Mountain is a good source for holiday e-cards. Is it worth the price? Well, that depends on your needs. An e-card is fun to receive, but most people will only read it once, then click "delete". This would usually make free e-card sites a better option. But if you find yourself sending a lot of them each year, you may want to subscribe to Blue Mountain for a year just because they have a superior selection of cards.