Weblog entry #202 for simonw
See all weblog entries made by simonw.
It is that seasonal time of year (Winter Solstice, Saturnalia, Yuletide, Hanukkah etc), when one might want to update ones on-line wish lists.
But which sites do people use? Or is trying to avoid the pointless waste by being specific, considered a terrible faux pas in your part of the world?
I looked at a few and http://www.prezzylist.com/ seems simple enough that it shouldn't lose me too many presents through technical confusion. Although I fear it may be open to abuse by pointless present reservation (that would be very mean spirited). It doesn't appear to have a huge number of users (if the UIDs are sequential, and I'm guessing they are), so I assume there are better sites out there being used.
Seems to me this is the ideal social networking website, relatively easy to do, people are clearly about to spend cash, and you can target the adverts to the exact product in most cases. Why aren't I doing this already?
Ideas
Oxfam unwrapped
Whilst without an on-line wish list I wasn't sure if my friends would have liked a charitable gift in their name, now I can say quite clearly I am happy that folks give to charities I approve of instead of to me.
On-line charity donations
Same idea, but without the fluff in the middle. My preferred charity at the moment if the British Thyroid Foundation, as amongst other items they fund research into thyroid disorders. Pick your own, we all have a cause that is dear to our hearts.
What Women really want!
Urm, well I don't claim any great insight into this, unless the answer is hunkier men than I. Apparently travel, excitement, jewelery, electronic gadgets (not specified), and flowers, are all good. Geeks should probably avoid the electronic gadgets thing, unless the lady (or gent) in your life is very specific.
I suspect proving you remembered something they mentioned in passing is even better, although that did get me the "How did you know this is what I wanted?" interrogation on one occasion.
And from the folks who got the "co.uk" domain of this name, I'm guessing women don't want;
Microsoft JET Database Engine error '80004005'
Feel free to post extra ideas!
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Funny I had similar thoughts when I was trying to put together an online wedding list for my partner and myself.
There are several online lists which are backed by particular stores, and that is a problem for those who don't like everything to come from one place.
For example my only wishlist is at Amazon.co.uk, and whilst they have a lot of things (especially now they've added a kitchen and shoe section!) I can't get everything I want from there - and for some items their prices aren't terribly good.
The biggest issue with having a non-specific site is that users can't easily keep track of stock or purchases.
e.g. I create a list, and write "1 x DVD : Aliens". At the point that a friend goes to the local store to buy a copy of the film that item isn't removed - because it isn't tied into the location where the item has been purchased. So there is a race condition allowing you to end up with 2+ copies of the same item.
For Christmas/weddings especially this is a big deal as the recipient doesn't know what they've received until a particular day - and they can't remove items which have been purchased in advance of the date.. For centralised sites like Amazon these issues go away, also obsolete products can be removed and pricing information may be kept current.
(I guess there is a potential solution here. The buyer should be both able to see the list and mark items as purchased. But it seems like that could allow malicious users to spoil the whole list...)
Trust issues like this, and the lack of up to date pricing/stock issues make a decentralized open system a bit more complex than they should be. Still it is a great idea..
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Also has the nice feature of AJAX'd drag and drop ranking of items on the wishlist.
I got the most milage out of it by prepending titles with a [tag], and jotting the cost of an item in the comment field.
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