Jared Van Cleave, junior in business management, recalled his electronic birthday card with a smile. He straightened up in his chair and said it was from his older sister in Michigan and he received it a month ago, the week of his birthday. Van Cleave opened his e-mail account, clicked on the message, and got a superhero flying around, ending his flight with “Have a superific birthday!” which he exaggerated by throwing his fist into the air.”It was sent with love from a person I am loved by,” Van Cleave said. “There is a lot of love in those cards.”The card made him feel special and he still has the card on his computer. He also plans to send a few electronic cards to friends for Valentine’s Day.”It’s free, and that’s nice,” Van Cleave said.Van Cleave likes online greeting cards because they are something “new and cool” that are fun to give and receive. Electronic cards, or E-cards, are weaseling their way into millions of electronic mailboxes every day. The popular Web sites are offering special services and advice to Valentine-impaired wannabe romantics.The Bluemountain.com electronic greeting card site is sending a majority, 68 percent, of all electronic greeting cards and offers users gift attachments such as online chocolate and flower merchants. The valentine recipient will receive an e-mailed card and notification of the gift to be delivered.Bluemountain.com expects to send more than 20 million valentine cards via e-mail this week. “Online greeting cards continue to grow in popularity because the Valentine’s Day message goes beyond the simple text message,” Mark Rinella, vice president of Bluemountain.com, said on the Web site. “Unlike traditional paper greeting cards, bluemountain.com visitors can add multimedia attachments.” The regards.com Web site also offers multimedia attachments for their 5,000 cards which can be personalized with voice, backgrounds or music; choose from over 300,000 songs. The site also provides the option to attach a gift, not a cyber gift of roses for her new screen-saver, but a choice of actual gifts to be delivered. These roses and chocolates will not have the attractive price tag of the free card; they start at $45 and take an endless trip up the price range.The Bluemountain.com site has done research on its clients to see how it can better meet their needs. In a study of over 5,000 people, Bluemountain.com found that 52 percent of men buy their Valentine’s Day gifts within the three days before the holiday, compared to the 40 percent of women who purchase gifts for their sweeties more than a week in advance. The sites offer these last minute shoppers a convenient, quick and painless way to purchase a gift and card.”It’s a unique way of getting something,” said Troy Straders, assistant professor of management information systems. Sanders teaches a class on electronic commerce strategies.The Hallmark.com site has some features that the other sites don’t. It offers the E-cards, reminder notices and calendars, but it also has a personal online gift assistant available that can send instant messages with valentine advice for your personal situation.The site has more of a gift selection, offering the traditional flowers and chocolates as well as videos, music, plush toys, figurines and jewelry. The site lets clients track their orders and keeps track of money spent to earn money back in their Gold Crown Club.”They are really trying to get people in the store too,” said Rhiannon Miller, assistant manager of the Ames Hallmark.Miller said that the site offers coupons, such as a two-for-one-deal on cards, which the user can print at home and bring in to the store. She said the free E-cards appeal to students but they may end up in the store to buy something also.The regards.com site also offers practical services such as invitation E-cards with RSVP e-mailing, free e-mail accounts, mailbox voice messaging and a chat room for their 2.5 million daily users. The company also brandishes a reminder service that will e-mail warnings so birthdays, anniversaries or Feb. 14 won’t sneak up unnoticed again.As Strader explained, the goal of these companies is to develop a loyal base of users by providing a free service — the E-cards — then expanding to sell the users a product. “The cost of having a person send a card through their system is almost nothing,” Straders said. “Their main goal is to build a base of people.”The step from sending an E-card to buying a gift online is easier, Straders said, when the user is familiar with the company and trusts its service.The bluemountain.com site offers its cards in nine languages and 17 diverse categories. They expand from the typical birthday, anniversary and sympathy cards to cards with classic poetry, recipes, gay and lesbian pride, kiss-and- make-up cards and the sought after perfect card for that hard to buy for left-hander.Taking a more comedic stance on the phenomenon of E-cards is the messagemates.com site. According to the site’s Valentine’s Day cards, nothing says lovin’ like two animated turtles getting busy, or for a valentine gone sour, a game show of couples with a prize of “dissatisfaction guaranteed.”This site offers other theme cards including “Pissy Bunny,” “Captain Horny” and “Interactive Cannibal” cards. Although the cards require the patience to download, the site offers a “find a message mate” service and an e-mailed newsletter. Their specialized categories of cards include many animated character cards and others such as “potentially offensive” and “strip-a-gram” cards.With the cards endless selection and being no strings attached free, there is no excuse not to join the bandwagon and send a few E-cards to those near and dear that are far away.