For readers who remember the classic Father of the Bride scene where the wedding is almost called off because the groom bought a blender for the bride-to-be, there's a new service called Gift Girl, which might put an end to such mistakes. The site is designed to help men buy gifts for their female significant others by offering up a small, targeted selection of items for womenfolk, hand picked by the site's creators, one of whom, incidentally, has that newfangled XX chromosome.
Gifts are broken down into basic categories like jewelry, clothing, and "accessories." You can also browse according to the type of woman you're shopping for, a feature the Gift Girl calls "collections." There are 17 collections to choose from including "work and play" and "party and sports attire." My personal favorite is "morning drop-off girl" where the site pulls the cliche/sexist card, saying: "After making breakfasts, packing lunches, and doing drop-offs, it's directly to the gym for this busy girl." Yikes. Other collections offer a hodge-podge of items from the rest of the site's categories, letting the buyer bundle together related items.
Avoid gifting faux pas by searching by price, occasion, or how well you know someone.
(Credit: CNET Networks)My favorite parts of the site are how it not only breaks down which holidays suit a certain gift, but it also recommends relationship levels where said gift would be appropriate. For example, a pair of standard silver earrings are good for all holidays and relationships, but the diamond and platinum drop earrings are recommended only for long-term girlfriends or wives. This is a very specialized version of tagging, and the site's built-in search even lets you filter items by these specifications. There's also a tag for gifts best given when you've screwed up, and a higher tier for "screwed up (royally)."
The site makes its money by charging members $20 a year. For that price, members get access to the full catalog of listings, which is maintained and updated as site URLs and fashions change. Members also get access to a reminder system that enables users to add important events like birthdays, anniversaries, or other special occasions, and have the site send you a heads-up. Michael Pratt, one of the site's creators, also tells us they're working on getting together a wish-list service and profiles for gift recipients to help buyers figure out what to buy.
Pratt insists his wife is the brains of the operation, who with input from her friends, helps create the directory of items for sale. The two were fed up with other gift-giving services that used affiliate systems or sponsored merchant members and wanted to have full editorial control over what was offered, instead of pushing out things they might not like.
The service reminds me a little bit of MyShape, which Webware reviewed a few months back. That site compiled lists of clothing that would look good on you based on your exact measurements. There's also Gifts.com, which also offers gift collections by using a series of either/or questions based on occasion or personality.
Related: Intellifit and Zafu.
Zivity is demoing its service today at the TechCrunch 40 event. It's a photo gallery of hot women, both clothed and not, and with a twist: Users who pay $10 a month for access to the nudie pix also get five votes a month, which they can parcel out to models they see on the site. Each vote is worth actual cash money to the models and their photographers.
She can be yours for $10 a month
By default, 60 cents goes to the model and 20 cents to the photographer who took it. Established photogs on the site can strike their own deals with models.
CEO Cyan Banister called Zivity a cross between Playboy (obvious), American Idol (the voting system), and MySpace. The last because there's a social angle to the site: Users will be able to interact with the models. The models, presumably, will take to the interaction in order to boost their popularity and earn more bucks.
Banister thinks that top-performing models will be able to earn more from Zivity than from a typical online model shoot (a few hundred bucks) and possibly even more than a Playboy centerfold model earns ($25,000, she says, plus $100,000 for Playmate of the Year). That's a lot of votes for a site that's got to walk the line between tasteful (but not so tasteful it's boring) and exciting (but not too: There will be no sex in the pictures). An initial reaction to this business plan is to scoff: Who's going to pay for straightforward girlie pictures? However, we should not underestimate the perennial power of adult content to generate revenue. There are lots of ways to make money in this business.
What I find most interesting about Zivity is that it's one of the few new adult business models that's not actually breaking new ground--not technologically, socially, nor from a business perspective. Although the idea of rewarding nude models directly for their popularity may not have been done online so far, it's not a new idea in the broader perspective: Social and participatory sites (like Digg) have shown us how powerful the crowd of users can be when it comes to sorting content, and how much value accrues to the winners of these contests. I'm only surprised that the concept originated for G-rated content before moving to the adult world, instead of vice versa.
The site is still in closed beta. And no, I don't have invites.
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