But we’re still dedicated to the core of the business as well. Our designers keep the site fresh with new card designs and we’re seeing tremendous growth in the number of GroupCards created and delivered each day.

We really love it when people rally the troops to create extra special cards with hundreds (0r thousands) of contributors. Here are a few of our favorites from the past few months…

Hugh Hefner: http://www.groupcard.com/c/HappyBirthdayHughHefner
Justin Bieber: http://www.groupcard.com/c/hRB6pn_6CUT
Leonard Cohen: http://www.groupcard.com/c/hHCoBXDzTrP
Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham: http://www.groupcard.com/c/bjHsq7w2RkL
Get Well Dougie Poynter: http://www.groupcard.com/c/B_obpOkmvpl

The online greeting card company, started by Milwaukee natives Anderson, Bob Ralian and Rich Lorbach, was recently purchased by gift card giant InComm, giving it access to an international market that includes some of the world’s largest retailers. The company, made up of four full-time workers, plans to triple its work force over the next year and significantly expand its product line.

Read the rest of the article or view the pdf.

Read our press release:

InComm, the leader in sales and marketing of prepaid products and innovator of transaction processing, has acquired GroupCard, a leading developer of social gifting applications on Facebook®. Leveraging the GroupCard social gifting platform, InComm extends its leadership in online gift card and social payments services. Together, the companies will generate greater social marketing exposure for retailers and some of the industry’s first ecommerce solutions for prepaid gift card products.

“This acquisition will allow InComm merchants and product partners to capitalize on social platforms, especially Facebook, to sell and distribute gift cards online,” said Brian Parlotto, InComm Senior Vice President of Consumer Products and International. “It demonstrates our commitment to the Facebook ecosystem, and complements InComm’s solutions with new, world-class ecommerce capabilities that will drive additional business for all of our partners.”

Read our full press release here

If ever you were going to be mushy with your mom, now is the time to do it. Start a GroupCard for your very special mom today so that the entire family has a chance to sign it!

SPECIAL MOTHER’S DAY PROMOTION
To make things even more fun, we’ll select our favorite, most authentic, and most kind GroupCard from all cards delivered on Mother’s day. The one with the best, most signatures will receive a $100 Amazon.com Gift Card!* And that’s not all. We’ll give the creator (probably you) $25 just for getting the card started. So choose a card and invite everybody in the office to add their special message.

** GroupCard mothers day gift card rules

1. We’ll select our favorite, most authentic, and most kind GroupCard from all cards delivered on admins day. The one with the best, most signatures wins. Period.
2. For the winning GroupCard, we’ll e-mail $100 to the recipient and $25 to the creator within 7-10 days.

Legal stuff:

*Amazon.com is not a sponsor of this promotion. Amazon, Amazon.com, and theAmazon.com logo are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates. Amazon.com GiftCards (“GCs”) may be used only to purchase eligible goods on Amazon.com or its affiliatedwebsite Endless.com. GCs cannot be redeemed for purchases of gift certificates or cards, orfor items from some third party sellers. GCs cannot be reloaded, resold, transferred forvalue, redeemed for cash, or applied to any other account. For complete terms andconditions, see http://www.amazon.com/gc-legal. GCs are issued and © 2010 by ACI GiftCards, Inc., a Washington company.

You had better start that office appreciation GroupCard today so that you have time to get everyone in the office to sign it!  The best cards take 7 days to circulate around an office… so now’s the time!

Check out all of our admin/appreciation card designs…

SPECIAL PROMOTION
To make things even more fun, we’ll select our favorite, most authentic, and most kind GroupCard from all cards delivered on admins day. The one with the best, most signatures will receive a $100 Amazon.com Gift Card!* And that’s not all. We’ll give the creator (probably you) $25 just for getting the card started. So choose a card and invite everybody in the office to add their special message. Read on for more info and to see rules.

By the way, remember you can start unlimited printable GroupCards for free with a 30-day trial.

** GroupCard admin day gift card rules

1. Unlimited entries per company, per team, and per admin
2. We’ll select our favorite, most authentic, and most kind GroupCard from all cards delivered on admins day. The one with the best, most signatures wins. Period.
3. For the winning GroupCard, we’ll e-mail $100 to the recipient and $25 to the creator within 7-10 days.

Legal stuff:

*Amazon.com is not a sponsor of this promotion. Amazon, Amazon.com, and theAmazon.com logo are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates. Amazon.com GiftCards (“GCs”) may be used only to purchase eligible goods on Amazon.com or its affiliatedwebsite Endless.com. GCs cannot be redeemed for purchases of gift certificates or cards, orfor items from some third party sellers. GCs cannot be reloaded, resold, transferred forvalue, redeemed for cash, or applied to any other account. For complete terms andconditions, see http://www.amazon.com/gc-legal. GCs are issued and © 2010 by ACI GiftCards, Inc., a Washington company.

Read our full press release here

Back when we started GroupCard in 2007, the goal was to create the world’s best way to say “we care about you” . So far we have  helped millions of people do just that!

An important part of our goal is to help people combine forces and give gifts together as a group.   In 2008, we became the first service to offer a group gift card.   Today,  we’re introducing GroupCard Merchant Social Gifting Service, which moves group gifting beyond groupcard.com and enables to retailers  launch and promote social gifting applications from their own Web sites and Facebook Pages.

GroupCard now directly helps  retailers increase their gift card sales.  Our new service is easy to implement and affordable.  Most importantly, it helps customers gather friends together on the retail site or Facebook Page to engage with the brand, and send a meaningful gift card to a lucky recipient.

People often ask what we mean by  ”Social Gifting Service”.   Simply put, a gift is social if it is shared and open where  many people can join in the joy of giving together.     In fact,  people are  three times more likely to give to a gift if it’s done together as a group.   GroupCard’s Social Gifting Service uses powerful technology platforms like Facebook® Connect, which enables people to see upcoming  events and post a gift on a friend’s Facebook wall where others can view and contribute together.   We also will tie in services like twitter, and of course email, to help  each gift be circulated broadly.

Here at GroupCard, we think every gift should be social.  We believe the best way to achieve this is by leveraging our trusted brand and powerful technology across a  distributed network of  merchants that people appreciate.    We’re starting with a few retail gift card partners that mean a lot, personally, to our team:

Terrapass is possibly the most environmentally positive gift that a group can give.  With a Terrapass gift card, the recipient can offset the carbon footprint of  their day-to-day life.. whether it’s for a car or travel.

After saving mother earth with Terrapass gift card,  there’s reason to celebrate.  In Milwaukee, WI,  AJ Bombers is the perfect restaurant to share a gift card, and bring the whole group to celebrate together.

Gang up on your favorite geek with a ThinkGeek gift card.   Whether it’s an ipad arcade or a molecular gastronomy starter kit, ThinkGeek is simply the most fun place for geeks to shop

Actaea is an awesome  Milwaukee-based hair and spa center.    It’s the perfect gift card that  lets the whole group say “go pamper yourself, on us”

***

So, what retailer gift card would YOU like to group gift?  Let us know!

For you PR folks out there, here’s the full word doc release: GroupCard Release04082010

We look forward to next year’s 100-year celebration!

Thanks Brent!

——————————————-

This year, we started sending GroupCards to our clients for various occasions. What I thought would be a simple client appreciation initiative turned out to be one of the biggest surprise successes of the 2009, creating an entirely new channel of positive interactions between us and our clients.

Every day we receive replies from clients thanking us for the GroupCard we sent them. “Thank you, you’re the best!”, “You all rock!” and “I can’t thank you all enough!” are just a few of the replies from clients that arrived in my inbox this morning.

The constant flow of these messages from our clients provides us with daily reminders of the positive impact our company has on our clients’ lives. We’ve even gained some new clients from current clients who have shown the GroupCard we sent them to a friend, who in turn came to us for services.

Without a doubt, GroupCards have been a grand slam of a success!

Sincerely,

Brent Rickles
Bills.com/Freedom Financial Network, LLC