I was sad to learn that Egreetings is going out of business next week. It was announced on Twitter without any explanation. After so many years in existence, just a little tweet announced its demise. I remember some of the first Egreeting cards I received from friends in the late 90s. I thought they were so progressive using digital cards for all occasions.

Egreetings was one of a number of eCard companies who made a fortune during the first Internet gold rush. Big brands wanted to own Internet businesses and were willing to pay astronomical fees for promising companies.

Egreetings took a different route. It went public in 1999, even though it lost $1.5 million on sales of $22 million over a nine-month period. Egreetings was valued at more than $350 million. While folks were cheering at first. they became disillusioned over time. The business went nowhere fast.

In February 2001, American Greetings bought Egreetings for what they thought was a great deal at $28 million. This year American Greetings generated $1.8 billion in sales and a $50 million profit.

Guess what? Most of that money came from paper cards. To learn more about the financial transaction that took place, read what the tech site Re/code had to say about the matter.

Tomorrow, I will tell you about Blue Mountain Arts. They became my client after they got a check for $780 million for their young digital business.