|
 Website review: wishlist.com
Tallulah Habib
Make it easy for people to get you gifts you will adore by making a wishlist and sharing it.
We all recall the days when mommy and daddy would ask us to make birthday lists, or we'd send letters to Santa. Just because you've grown up doesn't mean this has to stop. After all, you can only use so many picture frames and soaps, and all that chocolate is going to make you fat.
Wishlist.com enables you to create a list and then easily share it with friends and family.
Sign up and create a new wishlist, upload a picture and set the access levels. You can even make it password-protected if you have some secret desires. Enter a description of the list, along with private notes and details such as what the occasion is for, example, a birthday. Save.
When you view the list, you can add wishes manually, from other sites, by adding suggestions or by importing a list from Amazon.
Manual addition is accomplished by entering details such as what the item is, where a person can find it, how much it costs, how many you want and how badly you want it. You can even enter a url for the product and an image of it.
After you save the wish, the site will suggest similar items you may also want to add to your list, which you can click on to add or navigate past. By adding a +WishList.com button to your toolbar, you can also add items to you wishlist from any external site.
If you need inspiration, you can browse through hundreds of popular choices in the "shopping" section, which sources items from a variety of retailers. If you find an item you like, add it with a click of the mouse.
Sharing is just as easy. You can either share by wish (posted to any social network or e-mailed), or by list. Your list has a public url you can post to friends and makes use of Facebook Connect, so updates can be posted there. You can also add a Wishlist.com application to your Facebook profile, if you so desire.
People viewing your list can filter or sort items and can click on a handy "Buy Now" button that will take them to the url for the item you posted. In order to ensure that no two people go for the same thing, they can also reserve the gift they want to get you. If you're the kind that likes surprises, you may not want to check up on your list after sending it out.
Of course, such a nifty site needs to make money somehow and it does by selling the wishlist ability to other sites, such as online stores. If you want to feature a wishlist on your own site, you can do so for $15 per month. This income means that creating and sharing lists is completely free.
While other wishlist sites exist, such as Amazon's or Wishlistr (number one search result on Google), these other sites are not nearly as detailed and do not provide half the functionality. Sometimes it's nice to just jot something down... but if you have your heart set on a particular item, there's no harm in making it as easy as possible for people to buy it for you.
|
