In an era when everything appears to be moving online, Smilebox is finding new opportunities with old-fashioned businesses. The Redmond developer and distributor of online greeting cards is advertising on the cover of the April issue of Scholastic Parent & Child magazine, the first time the magazine has allowed ads on its cover. It is part of a larger $154,000 print campaign that Smilebox is running with the magazine, reports The New York Times.

That follows an announcement last week that Smilebox -- led by former RealNetworks executive Andrew Wright -- had inked a deal to  begin sellings its greeting card software at retailers such as Fry's and Office Max.

"More than 6 million people have installed Smilebox and our new retail product now gives us yet another way to extend our reach to families nationwide through popular retailers such as Target," Wright said in a release.

It is interesting to see Smilebox tap these existing channels, which are developed and mature but often aren't the first place that Internet startups turn. But it does raise a question of the whether startups should pay more attention to traditional businesses -- print media and brick-and-mortar retail for example.