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This service closes after the 2026 holiday season and these pages are kept for existing customers. If you are new here, the studio is where corporate holiday ecards are made now.
You will not see this again during this visit.
With the rise of HTML5 and weaning usage of Flash Player, HTML5 has become the optimal technology for delivering rich animated greetings.
All our ecards are delivered using HTML5 Video and includes a Flash Player fall-back for devices that do not support the HTML5 standard. This allows them to work on more mobile devices and desktop computers than our competitors offering HTML-only or Flash-only ecards.
Paving the way for the birth of HTML5 Ecards, the first version of HTML5 was introduced to the world in 2008. HTML5’s fate was uncertain for quite some time as Flash was the standard in video streaming on the internet and the industry standard tool for creating animated graphics and animated ecards. However, since November 2011, the time when Adobe stopped its development of Flash for mobile browsing, HTML5 quickly filled the gap and has since been the leading toolset for creating and delivering HTML5 ecards over the Internet.
As of January 2013, HTML5 has exceeded over 1 billion in adoption and HTML5-compatibale smart devices are now readily available in the market. While some websites like Craigslist, ebay, Wikipedia, and WordPress currently don’t use HTML5 to certain extents, more than a million websites today are based on HTML5. We take a brief look at the transition from Flash to HTML5 and how HTML5 ecards are making big waves online today!
Flash-only ecards have been around before HTML5 came into existence. The ‘flashy’ and captivating nature and of Flash ecards gave businesses an incentive to create and share visually appealing and rich ecard experiences comprised of animated graphics, music, text and brand messaging. As other businesses started realizing the value ecards were bringing to their competitors, more businesses began using them and Flash ecards became even more prominent.
However, as HTML5 started to become more popular since the turn of the decade, Flash-only ecards started going into decline. This is understandable as HTML5 was is considered an “open” standard technology and freely used by all whereas Adobe Flash is a “closed” standard technology and required far more effort and ‘red-tape’ by developers to develop applications. While this alone is only part of the story why Flash may be approaching obscurity when it comes to ecards, it is undoubtable that HTML5 ecards are now more relevant to the intended purpose with their unique approach to content presentation and responsiveness.
Along with HTML5 came a new way to present video in the browser without the need for special video players – HTML5 Video. Whereas Flash ecards required the user to have the Flash Player installed on their browser, HTML5 Video is handled natively by the browser and no third-party plugins are required. With this, video based HTML5 ecards are the new standard for delivering richly animated egreetings for business and personal use. With the majority of Internet users viewing the web and their email on mobile devices, HTML5 ecards were further solidified when Adobe stopped its mobile browsing production of Flash.
Since July 2010, YouTube has been offering an HTML5 video player that has received rave reviews since its introduction. This created a realization among businesses and helped unlock the potential of having video based HTML5 e-cards using the HTML5 video. For online marketers, active online businesses, and even institutions, this serves as a highly effective tool in meeting the pre-determined objectives.
HTML5 ecards, as of today, require three video formats - MP4, OGV, and WebM. These three formats are the standardized formats of HTML5 video and most the most popular desktop and mobile web browsers today support at least one of these formats – making HTML5 video compatible across most of today’s devices.
While HTML5 video is the more popular choice for delivering HTML5 ecards, HTML5 ecards can also be developed using the HTML5 canvas tag. The canvas tag in the HTML5 specification provides a stage for highly interactive and responsive HTML5 e-cards using CSS3 animations, Javascript, and SVG graphics. Unlike video based HTML5 ecards that require the browser’s native video player, they only require the HTML5 canvas tag to be displayed on the web. When complex interactivity is require, a HTML5 ecard delivered using the canvas tag is more favourable. When HTML5 ecards take the form of solely delivering a rich greeting in a non-interactive manner, video based HTML5 ecards are more favorable. With video being the highest content form consumed on the Internet, video based HTML5 ecards are more commonplace.
It certainly looks like HTML5 e-cards have pushed Flash-only cards out of the big picture. This becomes even more apparent when we take the increasing number of smart devices being used, into account. HTML5 e-cards can be easily accessed and viewed from most modern browsers, including Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome. It should be noted that although HTML5 support is widespread, some older web browsers don’t support. Often, these older web browsers do support Flash. It is common practice for, HTML5 ecards to have a Flash fall back for older versions of browsers that do not support HTML5. But that practice is trending downward. In 2015, our company, CorporateHolidayEcards.com, will discontinue support for some older browsers and we expect this trend to continue in the coming years and be adopted by others.
A well-developed HTML5 ecard can help you (re)introduce your business, increase awareness, market your products and services, boost customer loyalty and recognize employees. Their unprecedented applications and effectiveness makes HTML5 ecards one of the greatest digital marketing tools available to consumers and businesses in modern times.
