Eid, along with other festivities used to be so different in the age before Web 2.0 and cell phones. Today, telcos and web-based businesses brace themselves for the load that the holidays are going to bring. PTA gives out estimates that approximately 12 million SMSes are transmitted on a daily basis with the traffic increasing by almost 100% over Eid. Hundreds of thousands of people flock on various websites and portals looking for greeting cards or social networking sites to locate friends and loved ones. Also take into account the fact that there are more than 90 million cell phone users, and even if a million users access the internet via GPRS or EDGE, the numbers begin to look huge.

So what’s the purpose of ranting on about these numbers? Nothing, really. Nothing except to point out that the seasonal traffic surges that took place in other markets, are finally starting to happen here. Sure, there’s a long way to go and a lot of behavior to still observe, but the establishment of the trend is certainly taking place.

Not that there are a lot of printed greeting card products available here, but it would be interested to see whether the sale of those products is being impacted. It’s paper and its old fashioned. Nothing says “eid mubarak” or “hajj mubarak” like a viral SMS or email thread anymore. You can’t take a printed card and share it with your contact list. In fact, you can’t do anything with it except stick on your display shelf, and stock it up for sentimental value. So sure, go ahead and safe the tree. Send another SMS.

But while you forward that SMS, take a moment to look at the business opportunity that is still there. There might be a total of 5 greeting card websites running locally, for the local market. Not everything has to be perfect and animated and not every card has to look like Hallmark branded it. Something simple, customized and good. A blog that has jpegs for people to send or work with the few mobile platform developers we have and set it up for the phone that everyone’s glued to. And while everyone must have thought of the idea, few people have been able to convert that idea into a tangible venture. It might be small and it might be silly, but think of this – next time you have to send someone a greeting card and you can’t find one that quite fits the need? Think of the fact that that greeting card business website could have been yours making a quick buck!

On behalf of the CIO Pakistan team, Eid Mubarak!

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