From PR Newswire

Business Wire - Press Release
E-card Company, MushyGushy.com, Takes Steps to Thwart ``E-vildoers'' Before Their Users Get Impacted
07.25.07, 10:30 AM ET

A recent wave of malicious e-mails distributed through fictitious e-greeting companies has prompted www.MushyGushy.com, a start-up e-card company, to take some dramatic steps to protect its customers prior to any issues.

In an attempt to lure recipients into clicking on links that install a variant of the Storm Trojan virus, many fake emails are entering inboxes masquerading as e-greetings sent from "a friend" through well-known companies like American Greetings, Hallmark, 123Greetings, and Egreetings.com. These bogus emails usually feature a subject line that informs the recipient that they've received a greeting card or postcard from a friend, family member, or school-mate. When the e-mail is opened, there's a link to a website that uploads the virus to the recipient's computer. The first signs of Storm Trojan were seen in January 2007, with the e-greeting variant first appearing in June 2007.
"It is vitally important to make people aware that these emails are not coming from the e-greetings companies. They are spam," states Kurt Schwartz, the founder of MushyGushy.com. "These spammers are preying on innocent people and hurting the reputations of some great e-card companies. If the e-greeting you receive does not show your name or mention the sender's name in the subject line, as they do on MushyGushy, do not open the email or click on the link provided. Simply delete it."

In response to this growing problem, MushyGushy is proactively combating these "e-vildoers" with a three tiered approach before any possible issues could impact their loyal base of users. First, MushyGushy has hired additional customer service staff to answer questions and help educate their growing membership about this issue. Second, they have set up their own email notification templates that clearly display the receiver and sender names. MushyGushy's third line of defense is its most unique, providing a service that lets members post their e-cards on Myspace, YouTube and other websites - bypassing the emailing of the e-greeting altogether. "Posting your e-greeting to Myspace and YouTube are also great ways to dress up your profile page," states Schwartz.

MushyGushy.com, based in Parsippany, NJ, allows members to upload photos, cut out heads, and star in any one of over one hundred animated e-cards for all occasions. The site is fun and free!

It's not unusual/YouTube

Here's our 1st YouTube promo video. I'm in it!

It's a little unusual...

The Today Show

Right after we launched, we took the crew into New York to the Today show. We joined the thousands of tourists (and dozens of marketers) standing behind the fence to get our faces and the MushyGushy name on camera. We gave out 100's of business cards, looked great in our new tee shirts, and made some good contacts. Someone who might put us in touch with Rachel Ray. A guy who knows a guy who works for Letterman. Etc. All small steps along the pathway. We're fortunate that we are located close to the city so we can take advantage of the news programs, as well as special events. You can't spend a day in the city without running into a news camera!

You Tube

Today we are working on a new promotional video just for YouTube. Without revealing too much, we have a star-studded cast coming in today to film around the office. I'll let you know when its up

We love YouTube. It allows us to reach hundreds of thousands of people for free. We have a MushyGushy channel on YouTube and typically have around 100 videos up. And, for a limited time, we are offering our members the opportunity to have their own creations posted on YouTube - pretty exciting for most non-techies.


Here's a link to a video we posted a while back - it was in the top ten veiwed that day! It reall surprised us, and showed the value of being topical. We had 150,000 people view it in just a few days - definetly created some new MushyGushy fans, and showed the dual nature of our site. While we are an e-card site 1st and foremost, we're a vehicle to be funny as well.

Kurt

There would, of course, be no MushyGushy without Kurt. The idea was his and his alone, and he has put his full resources behind it. I can't say that we were all true belivers the whole way - but I can say for sure that Kurt has never wavered. And the great reaction that we get from everyoen who uses the site, and the extremely positive feedback that comes with every Blog that gives us a mention, affirms that Kurt was right. We've seen the numbers improve every single day. Maybe not the "Beanie Baby" run-away train that we would have liked, but a great site on a great path. Thanks Kurt, from the whole team

We've come a long way baby

This, I guess, was the very 1st "Gushy"...A static invitation from a co-worker for her husband's birthday. It was a big hit.

So here we are

e-cards
Its the middle of July, 2007, and things are in full swing. We've got a team of around a dozen creative driven people working to make the site a success. We're contacting news outlets, getting the word out the the blogging community, and hitting the streets of NYC en masse to let everyone know how cool and unique MushyGushy.com is. I'll "backtrack" in later posts to give you some specifics (Hungrygirls.com and the launch of the Apple i-phone were benchmark events for us). Now, back to work.