It's that time of year again. OfficeMax and JibJab have just launched the latest edition of ElfYourself, the massively popular website that features dancing elves you can customize to feature the faces of you and your friends. The site, which serves as a promotion for OfficeMax, has turned into an Internet phenomenon, drawing many millions of visitors a year.ElfYourself started back in 2006, when it received a surprising 36 million views in its first year. In 2007, it took the web by storm, with a whopping 193 million views. In 2008, the company teamed with JibJab to power the site (one of JibJab's specialities is creating customized videos like these, so it was a good fit). However, there was a significant dropoff between 2007 and 2008 — last year the site drew 55 million views. That dropoff wasn't a surprise though: JibJab CEO Gregg Spiridellis says that the company decided to require users to register in order to share their videos with their friends, when previous years hadn't required registration.
It's that time of year again. OfficeMax and JibJab have just launched the latest edition of ElfYourself, the massively popular website that features dancing elves you can customize to feature the faces of you and your friends. The site, which serves as a promotion for OfficeMax, has turned into an Internet phenomenon, drawing many millions of visitors a year.
ElfYourself started back in 2006, when it received a surprising 36 million views in its first year. In 2007, it took the web by storm, with a whopping 193 million views. In 2008, the company teamed with JibJab to power the site (one of JibJab's specialities is creating customized videos like these, so it was a good fit). However, there was a significant dropoff between 2007 and 2008 — last year the site drew 55 million views. That dropoff wasn't a surprise though: JibJab CEO Gregg Spiridellis says that the company decided to require users to register in order to share their videos with their friends, when previous years hadn't required registration.