Don't you just love when two things you like merge together?  Peanut butter and jelly.  Easy and free.  Cell phones and e-greetings.

Oh wait.  Those two haven't merged yet.

And yet is the key word there.  Internet Retailer published a report yesterday talking about the intention of American Greetings to merge two things that Americans love doing:  using their cell phones and sending/getting e-greetings.  Until recently American Greetings' mobile business has dealt primarily with ring tones and cell phone wallpaper.  But in 2007, the gift and greeting card company plans to scrap the ring tone/wallpaper business in favor of a more unique approach to mobile messaging.

Honestly, I hadn't thought of this before.  But now that I hear about it, I can't believe it took a greeting card company so long to try this.  American Greetings isn't releasing a lot of details on the strategy, but one would assume that the company will make it possible to send e-greetings from the website to cell phones and other mobile devices.  The company plans a pilot test of the program for Valentine's day.  So we won't have to wait long to give this new mobile plan a try.

The company also plans to redesign its primary website by summer.  The redesign will consolidate several specialized websites into one central location.  And integration plans are already being examined to incorporate the website in with the company's 700+ brick and mortar stores.

I'm interested to see how well this mobile strategy pays off.  More details would be great.  How's it work?  Is it advertising based?  If so, who's doing the advertising?

I guess I'll just have to sit back and wait a few more weeks.