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American Greetings, makers of physical and electronic greeting cards, released a Facebook Connect integration today that allows Facebook users to "star" in a customized news clip sort of video. The company is clearly trying to take the greeting card concept to the next level.
The integration, called Breaking Birthday News, mimics an American morning news show called Your World Today that pulls your Facebook friends' information and creates a news segment about the worldwide celebration of their birthday. Breaking Birthday News is accessible either on the company's Facebook Page or the company's web site.
After requesting the appropriate permissions, you select which friend you would like to wish a happy birthday, the app pulls their information and creates the news segment. The segment includes several correspondents reporting from New York and the Arctic Circle, as well as shots from the studio, Los Angeles, Paris and the moon of people celebrating your friends' birthday.
Overall, the news segment is cute, but also well done. For example, if you select a man or a woman, the footage changes appropriately to congratulate the "man of the hour" or the "woman of the hour." After you watch the video you can watch it again or post it to your friend's Facebook Wall.
American Greetings' Facebook presence is somewhat limited, as the only real activity on the Page consists of sporadic Wall posts, participation in discussion boards and some responses to the Page's 18,100 fans. It's possible to post greeting cards to friends on Facebook, but that's also done via Facebook Connect from the company's web site.
We've written previously about companies trying to make a go of greeting cards on Facebook, but so far there hasn't been one that's had smashing success. Pulling friend data to create a movie-like feature starring Facebook friends is an interesting idea, but one we also wrote about last week.
To learn more about different strategies for successful Facebook marketing integrations check out our Inside Facebook Marketing Bible.
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