Kiwee Marks 500 Million Downloads In Six MonthsKiwee Marks 500 Million Downloads In Six Months

Kiwee, an online social expressions purveyor, said it has drawn 1 million members and has delivered 500 million IM graphics since coming out of beta in July.

Kiwee, a division of American Greetings Interactive, announced the milestones in users and graphics downloads Wednesday. Kiwee adds an estimated 14,000 new members every day and has tripled its number of unique visitors and page views from December to January.

The company credited some of the growth to its IM toolbar, which recently emerged from beta. The toolbar gives users thousands of unique 2-D and 3-D expressions for AOL, MSN, and Yahoo instant messaging.

"The teen and 20-something demographic communicates with friends and family immediately on whatever platform reaches them fastest, and we provide expressive content that isn't available anywhere else on the Internet today," Rajiv Jain, senior VP and general manager of Kiwee, said while announcing the milestones. "We know how people connect with one another based on our 101-year American Greetings heritage and our deep psychographic knowledge of this market, and these exciting growth numbers illustrate how our content resonates with young people all over the world."

Kiwee boasts more than 6,000 free items for social expression. The free content includes postcards, graphics, emoticons, winks, display pictures, widgets, and backgrounds that can be used with major IM applications, as well as Facebook, MySpace, Piczo, and Multiply.

Kiwee said that in the past two months it has launched a Facebook application, added postcards, and released a line of customizable widgets. The company also has an agreement with Microsoft to deliver content through Windows Live Messenger in 15 countries and 11 languages.