Patent ID: 8910055

Claim:
A method for automatically generating and sending a greeting card comprising: collecting from a user of an online card service an identity of recipients or recipient groups to receive automated card mailings; collecting triggering event data specifying one or more triggering events upon detection of which, a greeting card is to be automatically generated and mailed to the recipients or recipient groups; collecting card template and personalization data specifying card templates to be associated with the recipients or recipient groups, the one or more triggering events, and personalized messages to be used for each of the various recipients, recipient groups or triggering events; automatically detecting a triggering event by a computer system without user intervention, wherein the triggering event comprises one or more of the following: addition of the recipient to the user's address book, one or more recipients visiting the user's website, a purchase of a product or service from the user, a new product announced by the user as a business owner, a new photo or group of photos being uploaded to an online photo service, or the user becoming friends on a social networking site with one or more of the recipients; in response to detection of the triggering event, automatically combining the card template with the personalized message to create a greeting card without user intervention; generating a web page at the online card service to maintain ongoing history of relationship between the user and the recipients or group of recipients wherein the web page includes the greeting card; and sending a greeting card order to a print service, wherein the print service prints and mails the greeting card to the recipients or group of recipients on behalf of the user.