Well, not exactly.

Apparently, Apple contacted Someecards a couple days ago because of some new content in the app — Someecards pushes new cards into the app just as it does on its site. There was one in particular that Apple did not find amusing, and wanted clarification on: A card making fun of President Obama Halloween costumes. It’s fairly easy to see why Apple wanted some clarification, the card involves race. Here’s what it says: “Just double-checking that your Obama costume will involve a mask and not shoe polish.”

Fans of Someecards will know that they use these types of provocative jokes all the time. The intent, it would seem, is not to be racist, but to use a joke to make a statement about race. “It’s kind of hard to explain humor, but I basically said it was making fun of racist behavior,” Someecards co-founder Duncan Mitchell tells us that he told Apple.

It is hard to explain humor. You either get a joke, or you do not. Apple, it seems, does not. “They said that they thought we could both agree we should remove the card. I said that we probably wouldn’t both agree that we should remove the card, but that we would remove it if they said we had to,” Mitchell says. “They said we had to.”

Anyone who has ever talked to just about any spokesperson at Apple will immediately relate to what Mitchell is saying. If Apple contacts you about something, they’re really contacting you to make you do what they want. If you don’t, there is often the threat of repercussions of some sort. In Someecards case, it would have meant pulling the app from the App Store.

As I’ve said many times, the App Store is Apple’s store, they can choose to do what they want with it. The problem is that Apple is perplexingly hypocritical when it comes to what apps get rejected and what apps get accepted. For example, apps that feature interactive Asian upskirt shots are fine. So are apps called Asian Boobs which feature young Asian women wearing next to nothing in sexually provocative poses. Also apparently fine is Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler’s famous work.

For whatever reason, Apple has decided that anything having to do with making fun of public figures is prohibited. Though satire is protected in this country, it’s apparently not okay in Apple law. Apple literally has no sense of humor when it comes to that. But guess who does? Google.

In a seemingly coincidental bit of timing, Mitchell says that Google contacted him just hours after his call with Apple. They were calling to see if he’d be interested in making the app for Android. Their big selling points? “They pitched us on all the cool new phones that were coming out, and they also wanted to stress that they wouldn’t censor the app,” Mitchell tells us (emphasis mine).

Google, it seems, has a much better sense of humor than Apple. And they’re definitely playing their cards right in attempting to set up Android’s Market as a more open alternative to Apple’s App Store. With over 100,000 apps now, the App Store is a juggernaut that keeps on growing. But it would be a mistake to believe this growth will continue on in perpetuity no matter what. Apple should be careful about pissing off developers (which it has done plenty of times already) when an alternative like Android is finally gaining some momentum.

Regular readers will know that unlike a couple of my colleagues, I’m firmly an iPhone guy. Despite the advances that competitors are making, I still truly believe it is hands-down the best mobile device out there. But, as I hope you’d expect, I’m not above calling out Apple’s bullshit when I see it — as I do, very often, with regard to the App Store.

I simply believe they are making a mistake with the way they’re trying to contain this environment. At first, it made sense from Apple’s perspective because the company is all about controlling the user experience. But as the App Store continues to grow, the app approval model be harder and harder to maintain. What happens when we get to a million apps in the App Store? What about 5 million? Is Apple prepared to hire thousands of people simply to approve apps? The more they hire and the more apps that keep coming in, we’re going to continue seeing more and more screw-ups and hypocrisy. And developers are going to grow more and more frustrated. This situation is simply not tenable.

Lighten up on your heavy-handed rules, Apple. And just lighten up in general.

[photo: flickr/swami stream]

So Someecards decided to give in to Apple and remove any offending content. As such, their app was quickly approved (do what master says and get a cookie). But they’re not giving up the good fight. The guys behind Someecards realize the hypocrisy in Apple’s ways just as much as anyone. But they’ve decided to get their app out there the only way they can and move their fight over to Twitter.

The company is currently using its massive Twitter following (over 1.4 million followers) to publicly declare war on the Asian Boobs app that is currently, with Apple’s blessing, a top selling app.

Some of the tweets:

We’re #40 in entertainment apps today while “Asian Boobs” is #12! This is war. Help us beat those boobs!

By the way, “Asian Boobs” costs TWICE as much as our app (for obvious reasons).

We have Asian Boobs shaking! They’re still at #12 and our app moved up to #27! Let’s keep pushing those boobs around!

Oh yeah, and that app itself is solid. For $0.99 you get access to Someecards content with the easy ability to email any card to a friend while on the go. If you like the site, you’ll like this. Sadly, there’s a distinct lack of Hitler.

Find the app here.

Okay, maybe that’s a little harsh. “The thing is, there’s really nothing wrong with Evite. It’s just not fun, which is really our big point of differentiation. Our site will be fun. And if you’re planing a party, shouldn’t it start off from the point of sending out the invites being fun rather than lame?,” Someecards co-founder Duncan Mitchell explains.

We agree.

I, for one, am much more likely to show up at a BBQ if I get an invitation that reads, “I’d appreciate it if you could bring meat, beer, condiments, paper goods, and all the guests to a BBQ I’m throwing,” than if I get one that says something like, “BBQ Time!”

While Someecards has a bunch of cards pre-populated in the Invites section based on the type of party, you can actually make any card on the site into an invitation. Simply find a card you like and click on the Invite tab below it, then enter in the data such as the title of the party, the details, the time and date, and where it will be. Once it’s sent, invitees can comment on the “Party Wall” and attach other Someecards there to express what they are feeling about the event.

The plan is also to attach the invitation functionality to all user-generated cards within the next few weeks, we’re told. And eventually Someecards will add Facebook Connect to extend these invites to your Facebook account as well.

The monetization plan is the same with the rest of the service. Aside from ads on the site, certain Someecards are sponsored by brands.

In a move that is only surprising because Apple has been getting better about ridiculous app rejections, Apple has rejected Someecards iPhone app on the grounds that it “contains objectionable content and content that ridicules public figures.” Anyone who has ever visited Someecards will know that this is standard practice, and one of the things that makes the site so funny.

So who are those public figures? Well one is Hilter. Another is Michael Richards (Kramer from Seinfeld). And a third is Roman Polanski (by way of Jack Nicholson).

Ridiculing Hitler should need no explanation (and, to be fair, Apple perhaps didn’t care too much about that but maybe more about the Jewish reference — which was in reference to Inglourious Basterds, a great movie, by the way). Michael Richards was being ridiculed for his racist outburst a few years ago. And Roman Polanski about his conviction for statutory rape (which happened at Jack Nicholson’s house in the 1970s).

Those are the three images Apple included in their note back to Someecards about what they found objectionable. Now, to be sure, all of those jokes are best suited for a mature audience, but Someecards did rate their app as 17+. More importantly, all are clearly satire, something which is protected by the First Amendment.

And best of all, once again this is a case of Apple rejecting an app for containing content that you can just as easily get on your iPhone by directing your Safari web browser to someecards.com. The main difference is that with an app, there is some level of protection (if parents choose to turn it on) to block kids from using it. On the iPhone web version, all are welcome!

You may recall that at one point, Apple had rejected an app that contained the famous Shepard Fairey “Hope” picture of Barack Obama. The reasoning for that was also that it “ridiculed public figures.” Apple changed it tune on that eventually, and hopefully they will here as well. Satire is satire, and it’s all on the web, and it’s funny. Lighten up, Apple.

The cards feature the same solid color backgrounds that are distinct on Someecards, but rather than black and white drawings, they have actors acting out short video skits. The first ones feature comedians Michael Ian Black and Michael Showalter, who are promoting their new Comedy Central show, Michael & Michael.

Yes, these are ads. But as we wrote previously, these are the best kind of ads cause they’re actually funny, and something I would watch.

Plus they have a lot of swearing.

Watch below. I really want to embed them all but they auto-play (I’ll embed the one with no swearing until the end but be warned, possibly NSFW). Watch the rest of them here.

http://d3gkbha1s7sr56.cloudfront.net/videocards/swf/someecards_videocard.swf

You probably know someecards as the startup that makes those hilarious online greeting cards with the oddly black and white, and usually outdated pictures. If you don’t know what I mean, just look around at any of the examples I’ve included in this post, I’m sure you’ve seen them before. But what you might not know is that the company is also doing branded advertising on some of its cards. For example, they offer cards branded by the hit Showtime show Weeds, the show Bridezillas, the shoemaker Puma and Jose Cuervo.

And the branded campaigns are genius because they include the same witty text as regular cards, but tie it into the campaign in some way. They popped onto my radar a couple weeks ago when I saw a few circulating around the web for the show Weeds, and I immediately saw the appeal of advertising this way, because I actually recalled the Weeds promotional part of the card. Most people, when they look at something online now, simply are trained to not even look at the ads. But when the ads are a part of the content, you have to look.

Obviously, this approach won’t work for all types of content, but for these cards it does. “You’re getting a lot better affinity for the brand if you’re doing things this way,” someecards co-founder Duncan Mitchell tells us.

And while someecards also wraps more traditional online ads around the cards on their main pages, the company realizes that a lot of times those ads that surround content or appear as interstitials in videos, violate the content in some regards. So why not work the ad into the content someway because, “what’s funny is funny,” says co-founder Brook Lundy.

While most advertisers are still obsessed with the idea of click-throughs in online ads, they’re “reluctantly moving” beyond that a bit, according to Mitchell. One thing someecards offers for its cards is the immediate share numbers, through the URL shortening service bit.ly. Mitchell says that advertisers like to see when a card is virally spreading on services like Twitter and Facebook. And they’re starting to acknowledge that this kind of word-of-mouth spreading on the web by way of the share is a powerful tool.

The next step in the branded movement for someecards is to get into video. In the next few weeks, the company will launch its first video campaigns, promoting a new show made by Comedy Central. The clips, like the someecards, will be brief (around 15 seconds) and will feature the actors of the show performing some dialogue outlined by someecards writers.

Someecards has a bunch of other branded campaigns in the pipeline, including some in the pharma area and PSAs, which should be fun. Embedded below find some great branded someecard examples.

If you are a fan of The Onion and can never seem to find just the right ecard to send to friends and family, you’re going to love Someecards. The company is announcing a seed round financing today – more details below.

The company was founded by former Onion writer Brook Lundy and Duncan Mitchell, and quietly launched in April 2007. It’s fairly straightforward – they create simple ecards like the one above with Onion-style humor, and let people email them to each other. Without any launch notice, press or marketing, the site has grown virally to 1.5 million unique monthly visitors, who are pretty passionate about the site. A few recent emails that the team have received:

• “I think you guys should come stay at my sorority house and do a presentation or something. If you guys are located anywhere near San Francisco by September, let me know and I will work for you guys for free.”
• “your website has got me laughing out loud and getting wet at the same time. i think you should make an ecard that says: this website has got me laughing out loud and getting wet at the same time.”
• “I really believe your site is of some sociological importance. Someecards lifts the veil of political correctness, denial and social mores.”
• “I would just like to thank you for providing what I consider to be one of the best websites of all time. Not only do you have a card tailored to everyone I know (and wish I did not know), but my productivity at work has dropped to a mere 30% during the day which is always a plus as I am constantly looking for something new to distract me. Thank you, thank you, a million times, thank you.”

• “I just found someecards today. My life is a better place to be. If this site closes
  down anytime in the next 50 years (before I die) I will shoot myself. Please
  let me live.”

To date, the team, which includes six part time writers, has created 1,900 cards. The most popular are here, but, really, you could spend a happy afternoon reading all of them. I’ve put three of them in this post.

The site was a part time project for the two founders, but the unexpected popularity of the service led to them to seek outside funding so they could quit their day jobs. Today they’re announcing a $350,000 seed round, led by Betaworks and notable angel investor Chris Sacca.

Apologies for this last one, but it definitely shows the edgy content on the site. Compare this to the American Greetings site dedicated to off-humor stuff, Kiwee (example), and you’ll understand why Someecards has a growing cult following.