Happy birthday to us!

I celebrated my birthday this past week. Nothing particularly special about that. Everyone has a birthday and it wasn't a round number.

But I was fascinated by the way people congratulated me. If my birthday is anything to go by, these greetings reflect our changing media usage. Here's a summary of what I experienced:

• I received only two traditional birthday cards.
• I received five or six text messages.
• I received two voice mail messages.
• I received one greeting card and a present (a DVD) via amazon.co.uk.
• I received one online birthday card.
  
• I received quite a few e-mails at my work and private addresses.
  

By far the largest number of greetings, however, came from a very new source — the social-networking site Facebook. (There were also a couple via Xing.) Both friends and colleagues chose this method, and some then had a discussion among themselves — for example, about whether I was going to bake a cake. The answer is no!

Those who still think Facebook and other such sites are a waste of time or stupid simply don't get it. This is the way that millions of people want to communicate. End of story.

It was also interesting to observe the number of corporate greetings I received by e-mail — and the different types of greeting:

• Lufthansa sent a game involving a birthday cake, and I won a €1.49 voucher for a music download. Quite fun and, of course, I generated lots of clicks for their website.
• Deutsche Bahn sent a birthday cake that I could decorate. I also could have won a prize. But it was too complicated. They also gave me 50 "bahn.bonus-Punkte".
• Flying Blue (Air France/KLM) simply sent an online card congratulating me and saying they looked forward to welcoming me on board again.
• Tchibo sent a jungle birthday card with animals singing. This was quite amusing — unlike the unsubtle link to their shop directly below the card.
• Lensbest, a contact lens firm, offered me a five per cent discount on an order in the next three months.
  

Our peronal data are available to so many companies that it is surprising so few congratulate us. On the other hand, I'm glad they don't. I get enough e-mails already. And, of the approaches above, I prefer either a simple greeting or a straight discount.

If it is your birthday when you are reading this, here's another form of congratulation: via a blog. Happy Birthday!