BigDates today announced several milestones in support of its strategic vision of becoming the leading provider of birthday services worldwide. With 40 million users of its Facebook application, Birthday Calendar, and nearly 100,000 users of its iPhone version, BigDates’ reach on key social platforms is rapidly expanding. BigDates is also just weeks away from launching its next Facebook application, Greeting Card Universe, a commerce-enabled paper greeting card app.

“Rapid growth of the social graph is quickly expanding everyone’s network of friends, and traditional paper birthday cards are inexpensive, yet from the recipient’s perspective, a step above most virtual gifts/cards.”

In only two years Birthday Calendar has become the most popular dedicated birthday application on the Facebook Platform, with users spanning the globe. Translated into 25 major languages, Birthday Calendar automatically provides Facebook users with reminders for friends’ birthdays, as well as virtual gifts and digital cards.

Launched only three months ago, Birthday Calendar for iPhone will have over 100,000 users before the end of the year, making it the top Birthday app in the iPhone’s Social Network category. An Android version of this same application is scheduled to launch in January 2010.

Greeting Card Universe (GCU), BigDates’ web-based play in the paper greeting card market, is poised for rapid growth from the launch of the Greeting Card Universe Application on Facebook Platform. GCU sells over 270,000 original greeting cards created by more than 3,400 freelance artists. The GCU Facebook application will serve as a social front end to GCU, enabling the purchasing and sending of paper greeting cards from within Facebook. For last minute needs digital versions of the cards will also be available.

Birthdays are a key activity on Facebook, and big business as well, evidenced by Facebook sales of over $70 million in its gift store this year. Also, thanks to the exploding virtual goods market on Facebook, users are becoming comfortable making low dollar purchases from within Facebook applications. All this activity is increasing demand for micro gifting and greeting products ranging from free to $5, right on target for $3 paper greeting cards.

Nasser Gaemi, CEO of BigDates states, “Rapid growth of the social graph is quickly expanding everyone’s network of friends, and traditional paper birthday cards are inexpensive, yet from the recipient’s perspective, a step above most virtual gifts/cards.” Gaemi continues, “The sweet spot of the paper greeting card demographic was also the fastest growing segment on Facebook earlier this year.”